Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Zeldin Islam And Juwel Kobir Notun Para Built His Profile Defending Trump Blikis 2023

 Zeldin Islam And Juwel Kobir Notun Para Built His Profile Defending Trump Blikis 2023  In another sign New York City is grappling with an increase of migrants entering the shelter system, the city has officially opened a sprawling, 84,000-square-foot emergency shelter on Manhattan's Randall's Island.

ABC News and other outlets were given a first look inside the center, opening Wednesday, which has a total footprint of 6.4 acres encompassing dormitories, dining facilities, recreation centers and isolation centers for migrants that may contract COVID-19 or other communicable diseases.

The decision to open the center comes amid an effort spearheaded by Texas Gov. Abbott to bus migrants to Democrat-led cities.

PHOTO: Randall's Island Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center, center, a complex of giant tents, is New York City's latest temporary shelter for an influx of migrants bused into the city by southern border states, Oct. 18, 2022, in New York.
Randall's Island Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center, center, a complex of giant tents, is New York City's latest temporary shelter for an influx of international migrants being bused into the ci..
Bebeto Matthews/AP

While Abbott's efforts have been criticized as a political stunt to call attention to a broken immigration system, a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams told ABC News that more than 20,500 asylum-seekers have moved through the shelter system since spring, with a majority of them arriving on buses from Texas.

"This situation is caused by political actors, as you know, and New York City is just having to respond and prepare for more people to arrive," said Manuel Castro, commissioner of the NYC Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee on Wednesday recommended withdrawing the drug Makena from the market, after years of study showed the fast-tracked drug had failed to prevent preterm birth.

Zeldin Islam And Juwel Kobir Notun Para Built His Profile Defending Trump Blikis 2023

Makena has been approved for 11 years, and the panel’s vote was widely viewed as a test of the agency’s “accelerated approval” program, which has expedited nearly 300 promising drugs to the market in 30 years. The program has been criticized for leaving many drugs in use as follow-up studies drag on to determine whether they work. The program drew considerable fire over the approval of the Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm last year, a costly drug that many experts viewed as unproven.

This is the first time in more than a decade that the agency, which typically follows the advice of its expert panels, appears poised to force a drugmaker to stop selling a fast-tracked product.

The move to pull Makena from the market — the only drug approved to forestall preterm birth — has been laced with emotional appeals and issues of race and health disparity. The risk of preterm birth is much higher for Black women, a point that Covis Pharma, the drug’s manufacturer, had pressed in a lengthy effort to make its case to the F.D.A.

The center will house nearly 500 single male adults, but capacity can be increased if necessary. Other migrants, including families with children, are being placed at shelters and other temporary housing arrangements throughout the city. Case workers and other resources will be provided to migrants at the Randall's Island facility so that they can figure out the next steps in their pending immigration cases and how to reach their intended destinations.

MORE: Florida began soliciting migrant flight prices in July, documents show

West Wisdom Valley C8 project, the first industrial park in Wuhou focusing on digital economy, is currently under construction. Several leading enterprises in the field have expressed their intent to cooperate with the project, including GDC Technology and Xiaomi Corp.

E-commerce giant JD's southwest regional headquarters has been completed and put into use. It can accommodate tens of thousands of people. JD is also enhancing cooperation with an industrial functional zone known as Tazhuang Meigu to build large-scale industrial clusters.

 

Relying on the innovation resources from the West China Center of Medical Sciences of Sichuan University and its affiliated hospitals, the West China Health Valley in Wuhou is striving to step up the commercialization of scientific and technological achievements in order to build health industry clusters.

As of July, it has become home to 58 enterprises, forming four industrial clusters revolving around precision medicine, medical cosmetology, health management, and medical instrument circulation.

Focusing on key areas such as urban industry and medical health, the district is introducing and cultivating a number of leading enterprises, platforms and projects in 12 industrial chains to improve its modern industrial system.

Along with its increasing economic strength, the district is continuing to increase investment in people's livelihoods.

When the autumn semester began in September, a number of new schools were put into use in Wuhou. It is also cooperating with colleges and universities to build affiliated schools, and making efforts to introduce high-quality basic educational resources and form clusters of high-quality schools.

To improve elderly care services, the district began to promote home care beds last year so that more elderly people can enjoy professional home care services without leaving their homes.

 

The mayor's office is looking into obtaining funding from the state government to help migrants purchase transportation to where they have family in the United States or where they are required to show up to immigration court to proceed with their asylum claims.

New York City Emergency Management had already started building the facility at Orchard Beach in the Bronx, but severe rains that moved over the region in recent weeks proved the location to be a flood risk, and the facility was moved to Randall's Island, just northeast of Manhattan.

 

Credit...Peter Foley/EPA, via Shutterstock

 
Representative Lee Zeldin, at the 2022 Columbus Day Parade, was one of the earliest congressmen to encourage Donald J. Trump’s presidential bid.

 

Before providing in-depth coverage of New York’s race for governor, Nicholas Fandos was a congressional correspondent in Washington reporting on the Jan. 6 riot and its aftermath.

On the night the U.S. Capitol was ransacked, as police officers were still counting the injured and stunned lawmakers emerged from hiding, Representative Lee Zeldin of New York walked into the Rotunda, held up a shaky camera and went live on Fox News.

Other Republican leaders had already begun distancing the party from President Donald J. Trump, whose monthslong campaign to overturn his election loss helped incite the violence. But Mr. Zeldin sounded all but ready to exonerate him.

The people of Ukraine and their representatives were awarded the European Union’s top human rights prize Wednesday's for their resistance to Russia's invasion and ongoing war.

The EU award, named for Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honor individuals or groups who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. Sakharov, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, died in 1989.

In a crackdown on the syndicate, undercover police officers posing as customers were deployed to a Tsim Sha Tsui hotel to gather evidence before arresting two sex workers on Monday.

The two suspects, who entered the city with travel visas, included a 27-year-old female tourist from Japan, who was an AV actress. The other woman is from Thailand.

 

A source said the investigation showed the Japanese woman was offered a free air ticket and accommodation to come to the city. She arrived in Hong Kong about a week ago before being taken to the hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui’s entertainment district, where she stayed and worked.

Hong Kong district official among 5 suspects detained in anti-vice operation
5 May 2022

“The syndicate posted an advert with her picture on Telegram along with contact details highlighting that she was a Japanese AV girl,” he said.

Clients were then told to go to the hotel for sex and each customer was charged between HK$6,000 (US$760) and HK$7,000 for sex services. The vice racket took about 60 per cent of the proceeds as commission.

 

“The investigation showed an agent from the syndicate went to the hotel and collected money from the two women every day,” the source said.

 

He added officers were still investigating the extent of the syndicate’s illegal business and were also trying to track down its ringleader and core members.

Hong Kong administrative officer denies link with prostitution syndicate
6 May 2022

The two suspects were among 16 women arrested in a series of raids in Tsim Sha Tsui and Yau Ma Tei in a joint operation by police and immigration officers against illegal employment and prostitution on Monday.

 

According to the force, they comprised four mainland women and 12 expatriate women. They were detained on suspicion of breaching their conditions of stay, overstaying and taking employment illegally.

Under the Immigration Ordinance, breach of conditions of stay is punishable by up to two years in jail, while taking employment illegally carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison.

It’s the second straight year EU lawmakers used the Sakharov Prize to send a message to the Kremlin. Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny won it last year.

When they nominated Ukraine, EU lawmakers praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for his “bravery, endurance and devotion to his people” and highlighted the roles of Ukraine’s state emergency services.

Among others, they also cited Yulia Pajevska, the founder of the medical evacuation unit Angels of Taira, human rights activist Oleksandra Matviychuk, the Yellow Ribbon civil resistance movement and Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of the occupied city of Melitopol.

Ukrainians have demonstrated resilience in the nearly 8-month-old war despite an uptick in attacks in recent weeks.

Since launching a counteroffensive in late August, Ukrainian forces have reclaimed broad swaths of the country, dealing a heavy blow to Russia.

“They are standing up for what they believe in. Fighting for our values. Protecting democracy, freedom and rule of law. Risking their lives for us," European Parliament President Roberta Metsola wrote on Twitter. “No one is more deserving. Congratulations to the brave people of Ukraine!"

“This isn’t just about the president of the United States,” he said, referring to what prompted the riot that he condemned. “This is about people on the left and their double standards.”

 

The comments — blaming Democrats and “rogue state actors,” not Mr. Trump, for undermining confidence in the election — drew little attention at the time. Soon after, Mr. Zeldin would join 146 other Republicans in seeking to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in key states.

The majority of Republican candidates running for higher office right now have either expressed doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 election or said outright that they believe the election was stolen.

New York Times political reporter Robert Draper says the party's embrace of lies and conspiracy theories has opened the door to fringe actors, who have become among the party's most influential leaders. He points to Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as a prime example of the party's extreme new direction.

Greene has expressed support for QAnon conspiracies and reportedly endorsed the idea of executing Democratic leaders. While campaigning for office in 2020, she posed with a custom AR-15 pistol in her campaign ads and presented herself as a "Trump mini-me," Draper says.

"This seemed outlandish to sort of run-of-the-mill Republicans, but the base wanted a MAGA warrior to send from their district to Washington, and that's what they got," Draper says.

In his new book, Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind, Draper writes that in the time since Trump left office, the Republican Party has plunged deeper into conspiracy mongering — and the notion that Democrats are not just wrong, but also evil. He says the GOP's stubborn embrace of the stolen election narrative undermines democracy and plays straight into the hands the nation's enemies.

Brazilian presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's top foreign policy adviser supports the inclusion of Argentina in the BRICS group of developing nations, which could be a forum for negotiating peace in Ukraine, he told Reuters.

Celso Amorim, foreign minister during Lula's 2003-2010 presidency, had a hand in founding the BRICS group along with Russia, India and China. South Africa joined in 2011 and Argentina has been pushing to become the sixth member.

"It's good to have balance within the BRICS, to have a larger role for Latin America," Amorim said in an interview on Tuesday afternoon. "I think the eventual inclusion of Argentina would be positive."

 

Polls show Lula with a lead of roughly 5 percentage points ahead of an Oct. 30 runoff against President Jair Bolsonaro.

Amorim said he has not discussed any role in an eventual Lula government, but he continues to discuss policy matters regularly with the leftist former president.

Regarding the Ukraine war, he said Lula had the disposition and track record to contribute to peace talks.

"He has the conditions to take part in a negotiating effort, which needs to be led by the European Union and United States, but with the participation of China, obviously. Brazil can also be an important country, whose voice resonates in the developing world," Amorim said. "The BRICS as a group could help."

Amorim also said Lula would make Brazil a protagonist in global climate talks if elected, calling for a summit of Amazon rainforest nations in the first half of next year to discuss conservation efforts along with more developed nations.

A third Lula term would open the door for Brazil to re-engage diplomatically with neighboring Venezuela, Amorim said, adding that Bolsonaro and U.S. President Donald Trump achieved little by breaking off relations with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

 

"When we're having these kinds of troubles at home, every day that there's trouble, this is a good day for Russia," Draper says. "Russia has a compelling interest in the decline of America as a voice worldwide, in its promulgation of democracy."

On Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy's early obsession with Donald Trump

Kevin McCarthy, in his 20s, according to a childhood friend who I interviewed back in Bakersfield, Calif., where McCarthy is from, was utterly obsessed with Trump, utterly obsessed with this author of The Art of the Deal. And so he had long felt that Trump had a way of not only capturing what it was that he stood for and developing a brand, but negatively branding the other side. And so McCarthy, to me, is emblematic of the establishment wing of the Republican Party that has enabled not only the rise of Trump, but the sustaining of Trump as a powerful force that far from criticizing him, as Liz Cheney has, for example, that they've largely felt that now we can use Trump. "Trump will be sort of the tip of our spear to get conservative policies done," or at minimum, "We can't stop the guy, so we'll go to ground." ... The care and feeding of Donald Trump is something that McCarthy eagerly signed on to do from the moment that Trump took office.

On how Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene won her congressional seat in 2020

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a native of Georgia. ... She had not been any kind of participant on any level in the political process really until around 2017, 2018. She became an adherent to the QAnon conspiracy theory, and after that began to show up on Capitol Hill as a kind of confrontational journalist, as she would put it, basically harassing Democratic staff members, but was unknown by the Georgia political establishment. And indeed, she told me that Republicans in that state viewed her as "a three-headed monster" when she decided to file [to run for office].

But she was a self-funder and then ultimately moved to a more conservative district, the 14th District, in northwest Georgia, when that [seat] became vacated in December of 2019. And it kind of caught the party and the Georgia media unawares, [when she] suddenly won in the primary. Then opposition research files came out indicating that she had posted in the past all these offensive and conspiratorial theories online. That didn't stop her from winning, but she came to Washington in January 2021 with the expectation from most of us, allegedly smart people, that she would soon be ... given essentially that one term, otherwise [be] ignored by the Republican Party and would be out the door. That did not occur. In fact, in many ways the opposite occurred. It's kind of a case study in the Republican Party in the post-Trump era, and thus forms a central foundation of my book.

On House members fearing for their physical safety after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol

There was a genuine fear of these gun-toting new members of Congress, like Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and people who are Democrats genuinely fearing for their safety, to the point where a senior staffer on one of the committees circulated a memo saying that she wished to see occupational safety worker guidelines applied to the U.S. Capitol, suggesting that it was an unsafe work environment, and in no other private business, would this kind of cavalier talk about bringing in weapons to the Capitol and demonizing the people who disagree with you be tolerated. The fear was not just the usual, "We disagree with them. We think they're wrong," or even, "We're revolted by them." It was a real fear. And it was one of the driving factors in Speaker Pelosi insisting on putting magnetometers just outside the floor of the House.

On Marjorie Taylor Greene being stripped of her two congressional committee assignments due to her incendiary comments

Saturday, October 15, 2022

Vula Vai CovId Update Charpara Afghan on the run after Taliban executed boyfriend Pabna

 Vula Vai CovId Update Charpara Afghan on the run after Taliban executed boyfriend Pabna Brothers Brent and Clyde Hanson shared a home in Milbank, South Dakota. Brent lived in the basement area while his older brother lived upstairs with wife Jessica and their three-year-old son.

The brothers had joint ownership of the two-storey property but while they were all part of the Jehovah’s Witnesses community and active churchgoers, it was not a harmonious household.

Sierra Leone's first professional women's football league launched on Saturday with a match in the northern city of Makeni, kicking off a six-month season in which 12 clubs from across the country will compete.

"We are so proud to make this history as the first ever national women's premier league," Asmaa James, chairperson of the Sierra Leone Women's Premier League Board, told AFP.

The Mena Queens of Makeni battled the Kahunla Queens from Kenema during the opening match on Saturday with Sierra Leone's first lady, Fatima Bio, in attendance at the crowded Wusum Sports Stadium in Makeni.

"This is the first time women are participating in our local Premier League, it's an honour that our best footballers are from Bombali District", Sierra Leone president Julius Maada Bio said on Saturday during the kick-off.

 

"Football is about peace and cohesion. We want to see beautiful football, all the teams are winners."

The 12 privately-owned clubs will compete for a cash prize and trophy in April, James said.

She said women's football has long been neglected in the West African nation of about eight million people, adding that it was now time for women to showcase their potential.

"We have engaged the girls and their parents and also the team managers and other football stakeholders to allow the girls to play football," she said.

Supporters hope the league will boost the success of the national women's team, which failed to qualify for the 2022 Women's Africa Cup of Nations.

But they face several key challenges, including inadequate venues.

The national 45,000-seater stadium in Freetown, opened in the 1980s, is currently being renovated with support from the Chinese government.

Then there are the logistical hurdles of criss-crossing the country -- where only about 10 percent of the road network is paved, according to the African Development Bank -- for matches.

In a meeting with the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) and the Women's Premier League Board Wednesday, president Bio said his government takes women's empowerment very seriously and would work to elevate women's football in the country to international standards.

SLFA President Thomas Daddy Brima said the new league would boost employment.

The league will help shine a light on the women's game both locally and internationally, and will put Sierra Leone on the map in the sport, Brima added.

Key challenges to gender equality and women's empowerment in Sierra Leone include a lack of economic independence, "high illiteracy and entrenched customs and traditions" and an "absence of progressive laws that protect and promote participation for women", according to a September report by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

 

Clyde, 59, and Jessica, 29, were quiet and modest. They’d met through a matchmaking service and, despite their age gap, were happily building a family. Clyde worked for a retail outlet while Jessica was a devoted mum and was pregnant with their second child.

The couple showed kindness to their neighbours, as their religion encouraged, but in July 2021, Jessica called the police and said her brother-in-law Hanson, 57, had pushed and hit her during an argument.

She was four months pregnant and, at the time, was being treated for some mental health struggles at a local facility.

 
 

Before going away for her treatment, Jessica had asked Hanson to look after her dog. When she returned, after less than two weeks, her pet was gone.

Voters in British Columbia ushered in a wave of political change throughout the province in municipal elections Saturday that saw new mayors elected in Vancouver and Surrey and other major communities.

Vancouver businessman Ken Sim defeated Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, posting an overwhelming victory after losing the mayor’s race to Stewart in 2018 by less than 1,000 votes.

“This is not the result we wanted,” said Stewart, a former federal New Democrat MP. “But we have to respect it.”

The fate of necessary health care for transgender teenagers in Arkansas is being decided in a court case starting next week.

On Monday, District Court judge James Moody in the Eastern District of Arkansas will begin hearing arguments for the case Brandt et. al. v. Rutledge. The case was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, along with four families with transgender teenagers and two doctors, after Arkansas passed HB 1570.

HB 1570 was the first law passed in the country that would ban doctors from prescribing treatment for the purposes of gender transition for minors. This means a whole suite of holistic gender-affirming care would be illegal for children currently receiving it.

The law upended families across the state, and lawyers quickly secured an injunction stopping it from going into effect before next week’s trial.

 

“If the law was struck down? We would celebrate in the streets,” Brandi Evans, the mother of a transgender teenager, told The Daily Beast. “I mean, we’re always on kind of high alert to what could happen [otherwise].”

Evans’ son Andrew is currently 17, meaning if he were to suddenly lose access to all his care, the family has begun to make plans to prepare for the next year of his ongoing medical transition before he is legally allowed to make medical decisions on his own.

For families in Arkansas, the passage of HB 1570 has galvanized a small, tight-knit community pushing families to fight for each other in an effort to keep their kid’s medical care from getting shut down.

This meant added responsibilities such as advocating for themselves, showing up at the state Capitol and making themselves visible, because you never know who is watching.

Danielle May and her family’s life was “blown up our world in the best way possible” when her son Phoenix came out as transgender in 2021. Had an injunction not been granted that year stopping the implementation of HB 1570, Phoenix would not have had access to gender affirming care.

Contrary to many narratives around gender affirming care, he did not start Hormone Replacement Therapy right away. In fact, Phoenix’s first healthcare provider was targeted by lawsuits forcing the family to relocate to another clinic in order to continue his medical transition.

Now, May told The Daily Beast that “I’m getting to see my child move through the world with confidence and peace and joy,” alongside his brothers and supportive family. She says that without this affirming environment and care she would have been deeply scared for Phoenix’s mental state and his risk for self-harm.

Studies have shown that transgender adolescence who have access to gender affirming care reduce suicidality and improved mental health outcomes.

Evidence like these studies and other experts on pediatric endocrinology were not able to sway legislators during the 2021 legislative session in Arkansas when HB 1570 was debated. The state’s governor at one point even vetoed the bill after it passed, before it was overridden by the legislature.

Recently, Arkansas’ Attorney General Leslie Rutledge—who will be defending HB 1570 in District Court—was interviewed by John Stewart about the law, and justified the law under the guise of allowing “those young people, who are facing gender confusion and dysphoria allow them to become adults and to make that decision” even if such practices were opposed by major medical organizations such as the American Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics.

Rutledge could not name the expert testimony that was used in support of the bill, telling Stewart to refer to the briefs filed in the upcoming court case. She also spelled out some false claims about transgender youth to justify the bill.

“We have 98 percent of young people who had gender dysphoria,” said Rutledge. “That they are able to move past that and once they had the help that they need, no longer suffer from gender dysphoria.”

These claims, along with recent harmful threats to gender affirming care providers are part of a broader reactionary backlash to transgender rights, which this case hopes to provide legal precedent to halt said Chase Strangio, Deputy Director for Transgender Justice, ACLU, said in a conference call before the case goes to trial.

“Ultimately, it will be this trial in Arkansas beginning on Monday that will be the first to fully hear the evidence on the merits, challenging these types of restrictions that unfortunately, we've seen over and over again across the country,” Strangio said. “We look forward to being able to advocate in court for our clients and for all transgender Arkansans who deserve the right to receive the care that they need, just like everyone else in Arkansas.”

 

He said the past four years, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the opioid overdose crisis and housing issues were difficult for Vancouver, but “I do think we got the city through pretty hard times.”

In Surrey, Mayor Doug McCallum was defeated by challenger Brenda Locke, a member of Surrey council and a former B.C. Liberal member of the legislature.

Locke’s victory speech included a pledge to keep the RCMP in Surrey despite McCallum’s initiative to replace the Mounties with a civic police force.

“We need to keep the Surrey RCMP right here in Surrey,” she said.

 

The municipal elections also saw major shifts across B.C., with new mayors elected in Kelowna, Kamloops, Penticton and Victoria.

Voters casting ballots Saturday in Vancouver said housing was the top campaign issue, with public safety and support for vulnerable people also on their minds.

Across B.C. voters said they wanted to see politicians tackle the big issues confronting almost every community.

“I think that definitely housing is a priority for everyone in Vancouver,” said artist Taz Soleil. “For me, housing, especially for marginalized people, is a priority.”

Soleil said she backed candidates who promised more housing options and supports for low income people.

Margaret Haugen, who accompanied a friend to vote at downtown Vancouver’s Roundhouse Community Center, said affordable housing was the issue she was most concerned about this election.

“The Downtown Eastside has just gotten progressively worse,” said Haugen, adding too many people there are living on the streets.

From Vancouver and Surrey to the smaller Interior communities of Princeton and Clearwater, campaigns focused on issues that typically fall beyond the municipal realm, such as affordable housing, health care, violent crime and mental health and addiction.

Stewart promised to triple Vancouver’s housing goal over the next decade to 220,000 homes, while Sim pledged to hire 100 new police officers and 100 mental health nurses.

Stewart and Sim were among 15 mayoral candidates in Vancouver.

Vancouver released data showing increased numbers of advance voters this year compared to 2018.

In the 2022 election 65,026 people voted in advance polls in Vancouver, up from 48,986 in 2018.

The advance polling results were different in Victoria, the city said in a statement.

 

In 2022 4,613 people voted in advance polls in Victoria, slightly less than the 4,791 people who cast advance ballots in 2018.

In Clearwater, incumbent Mayor Merlin Blackwell said health care was the top issue in his North Thompson community, where the local hospital’s emergency department experiences regular closures.

He said small-town issues of dog parks and potholes were on the back burner in this campaign with residents wanting local government to improve health care and fight crime.

McCallum faced consecutive challenges, first at the ballot box against seven other candidates, then in court on Oct. 31 as he faces trial on a charge of public mischief.

Vula Vai CovId Update Charpara Afghan on the run after Taliban executed boyfriend Pabna

Hanson said he’d taken it to a farm because he didn’t want to look after it – but he wouldn’t say where. A row ensued and, according to Jessica, Hanson turned violent, repeatedly hitting her over the head and threatening to throw her out of the house.

Jessica admitted to officers that it was out of character for Hanson to be violent, but she went on to say she was fearful for her safety and worried about how he was going to react once he discovered she’d reported him

 

Of course, Hanson did find out she had gone to the police when he was charged with assault. The incident would undoubtedly have caused further friction in the home.

By December, Jessica was nine months pregnant and ready to give birth to a little girl they’d already named Annika. Would the new arrival heal the household?

On 15 December, Hanson was due to meet Milbank Police Chief Boyd VanVooren. The chief had arranged it the night before, via
social media, saying he wanted to “exchange a Christmas card from a church”.

Hanson arrived at the station at around 9.10am to make the festive gesture. During the visit, the chief, who knew about the outstanding assault charges, asked Hanson whether there were any further issues at the house with Clyde and Jessica.

President Xi Jinping on Sunday kicked-off the 20th congress of China's ruling Communist Party with warnings that he may use force to retake Taiwan as he slammed foreign interference in its reunification efforts.

The comments came at the start of a week-long event where Xi is widely expected to win a third leadership term and cement his place as the country's most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong.

The gathering of roughly 2,300 delegates from around the country began in the vast Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square amid tight security and under blue skies after several smoggy days in the Chinese capital.

Xi began a speech that touted the party's safeguarding of national security, maintaining social stability, protecting people's lives and taking control of the situation in Hong Kong, which was rocked by anti-government protests in 2019.

On Taiwan, Xi said, 'We have resolutely waged a major struggle against separatism and interference, demonstrating our strong determination and ability to safeguard state sovereignty and territorial integrity and oppose Taiwan independence.'

The gathered delegates responded with loud applause as their president emphasized that China will 'never commit to abandoning the use of force' in its unification with Taiwan, which he called inevitable.

Xi added that China will accelerate the building of a world-class military and strengthen its ability to build a strategic deterrent capability.

He replied, “They no longer live here.”

Within minutes, at 9.45am, the chief overheard a call to the station requesting a welfare check at the Hansons’ home. A food delivery worker had reported going to the residence and seeing what he feared was blood on the door.

 
 

Milbank Police Chief Boyd VanVooren, who was told the chilling confession

Milbank Police Chief Boyd VanVooren, who was told the chilling confession 

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YOUTUBE)

Officers were dispatched and the chief asked Hanson where his brother had moved to. His reply was shocking.

“I snapped,” Hanson said, before making a motion with his thumb across his neck, in a slashing gesture. “I killed them on Sunday.”

It was a startling confession. Surely the family troubles hadn’t escalated to murder? Did Hanson really have it in him to kill his brother and his heavily pregnant sister-in-law? He was taken into custody as officers went to the house.

When they arrived at around 10.05am, they found Jessica’s body under a blue tarpaulin in an area of the house that was yet to be
made habitable. She had lacerations to her body that were consistent with a machete assault. Her unborn baby had also died
as a result of the attack.

Ahmadi desperately tried to call him back, but Sabouri’s mobile had been switched off.

‘The Taliban sent me a video of his death,’ Ahmadi says of the four-second clip seen by seen by Metro.co.uk, adding: ‘Telling me that you will become Hamed.’

‘His memory will never be forgotten,’ Ahmadi says.

Sabouri, from Kabul, was a regular star-gazer. He hoped to be a doctor one day, loved romance novels and listened to Michael Jackson and Justin Bieber.

Gay man ‘gang raped by six men with a machine gun’ in prison by Taliban

A single year of Taliban rule has turned Ahmadi’s life upside down.

‘Before the Taliban came, my life was great, I was free,’ Ahmadi says. ‘I was not insulted anywhere, I had a love life everywhere. I had sex with boys.

‘Now I live like a prisoner. I am insulted and tortured everywhere.’

‘My elder brother was a [Afghan Uniform Police] officer, he was shot in front of my eyes by Taliban terrorists,’ he adds.

Thousands of people fled the country after the Taliban’s bloody recapturing of Kabul. But LGBTQ+ remain (Picture: Getty Images/AFP)

Within days of the Taliban seizing power, Ahmadi was jailed for being gay. He escaped only after bribing a guard before changing his name altogether.

But the Taliban continue to hunt him down.

He has been sent several threatening letters from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, the state’s religious morality police.

One letter seen by Metro.co.uk says ‘residents’ have complained about Ahmadi being a ‘supporter of homosexuals’ who carries out ‘indecent acts’.

 
 

Ministry officials called on him to be arrested ‘as soon as possible’.

‘In order to prevent moral corruption in society, there should be legal punishment,’ the letter concludes.

‘Life is very difficult for me, I am under serious threats, and I can’t go anywhere because of fear the Taliban are looking for me,’ Ahmadi says.

Saiful Vai Kothay Tumi evacuation of civilians in southern Ukraine Bogura 7 heath 2023

 Saiful Vai Kothay Tumi evacuation of civilians in southern Ukraine Bogura 7 heath 2023 Russian President Vladimir Putin has illegally annexed territory, attacked civilian targets, called up military reservists and threatened nuclear escalation. But the Kremlin still doesn’t seem confident that its military can hold back a Ukrainian counteroffensive ahead of winter.

Xi Jinping will upend Chinese political traditions cementing his status as one of the world's most powerful leaders — and take on the U.S. to become the dominant superpower — when members of the country's ruling Communist Party extend a third term as general secretary at the Party's 20th National Congress.

The conclave kicks off Oct. 16 and runs for about a week. 

EU countries on Wednesday agreed to level new sanctions on the Islamic republic over the "crackdown" during a month of demonstrations over Amini's death. The move is due to be endorsed at the bloc's foreign ministers' meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.

"We recommend that Europeans look at the issue with a realistic approach," Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in a phone call Friday.

In a separate statement on Friday, Amir-Abdollahian said: "Who would believe that the death of one girl is so important to Westerners?"

"If it is so, what did they do regarding the hundreds of thousands of martyrs and deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Lebanon?" he added.

Iran has been rocked by protests since Amini's death on September 16, three days after she was arrested by morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating the country's strict dress code for women.

Xi, 69, ascended to China's top job in 2012. During his decade in power he's had far-reaching influence at home and abroad. He has centralized power and relentlessly cracked down on dissent. He has poured billions into international infrastructure projects and aggressively pursued island construction and militarization in the South China Sea.

What is China's Communist Party Congress, and what happens now?

  • Xi is already poised to remain in power for the rest of his life after China's lawmakers abolished the two term limit on the presidency, a largely ceremonial title. Xi will be reconfirmed as president next March.
  • About 200 top members of the Party will be backed to join the policy-making Central Committee. The Central Committee, in turn, will select 25 people to join the Party's Politburo, a kind of inner circle of this executive branch. These 25 people will then determine who makes up the Politburo's standing committee, a group of seven elite Party members headed by Xi, in the general secretary role.
  • Geremie Barmé, an Australian academic, once called Xi the "chairman of everything."
  • Two men were sentenced to 40 years in prison each on Friday for the 2017 car-bomb murder of Maltese anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, a brutal killing that rattled Europe and drew international attention to the tiny Mediterranean country’s criminal underworld.

    Brothers George Degiorgio, 59, and Alfred Degiorgio, 57, who previously claimed innocence, pleaded guilty to the assassination of Caruana Galizia, a muckraker who had investigated drugs, arms traffickers, politicians and judges in a country largely known as a picturesque tourist destination. They had faced life imprisonment.

     

    Prosecutors alleged that the brothers had been hired to kill Caruana Galizia by one of Malta’s wealthiest people, Yorgen Fenech, according to the Associated Press. Fenech is awaiting trial. There were also questions as to what role, if any, politicians played in her death. Caruana Galizia had linked associates of then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat with suspicious financial transactions described in the Panama Papers, which detailed the hidden infrastructure of offshore tax havens. (A probe later cleared Muscat and his associates of wrongdoing related to that scandal.)

    In a blog post published on the day of her murder, Caruana Galizia accused a top Muscat aide of corruption. The aide — who was subsequently sanctioned by the United States — denies wrongdoing. The premier was pushed out of office in 2020 by protesters who were furious at how the investigation of her murder was handled; an independent probe concluded last year that the Maltese state bears responsibility for her death due to its “culture of impunity” and failure to recognize the risk to her life.

    “It’s been half-a-decade of agony for Daphne’s family and for the country,” wrote European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, who is Maltese, in a Facebook post. “Daphne still cannot write her blog, enjoy her children and grandchildren, potter in her garden or be with her loved ones. Today is not justice, it is a small step.”

    “Daphne’s killers should never have been allowed to do what they did in the first place and the systemic failures that enabled her assassination need to be effectively addressed,” said Corinne Vella, a sister of Caruana Galizia, in a Saturday email to The Washington Post.

    Caruana Galizia worked as a journalist in Malta for more than 30 years, according to a foundation established in her memory. She ran a lifestyle magazine and a corruption-focused blog titled “Running Commentary.” Her aggressive reporting on both government and opposition figures led to some 43 libel suits at the time of her death — many of which her family is still fighting.

    Caruana Galizia also received numerous threats of violence before her assassination. In 1995, her front door was doused in fuel and set on fire, and her dog — one of three that were killed during her lifetime — was left in front of her home with a slit throat. In 2006, she published an article on neo-Nazi groups in Malta, leading someone to arrange a stack of tires behind her home and set them ablaze.

    “She was insulted and pressured on a daily basis. She was hated,” said Pauline Adès-Mével, a spokesperson for Reporters Without Borders (RSF), who testified at the inquiry into Caruana Galizia’s murder and who had sought to support the reporter. “Unfortunately, she was already targeted, and we didn’t have time to set up any protection or legal framework for her."

     

    Mandy Mallia, a sister of late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, lights candles in front of a picture of her sister in Valletta, Malta, on Friday.

    Mandy Mallia, a sister of late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, lights candles in front of a picture of her sister in Valletta, Malta, on Friday.© AP/AP

    Caruana Galizia was 53 when she was killed near her home in a remote town in northern Malta where she lived with her family for safety purposes. The brutal nature of her murder shocked the European Union, where hits on journalists are rare. It also spurred calls for reform in Malta, where reporters must deal with an increasingly hostile climate.

    Malta ranks 78th out of 180 countries on RSF’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index, 31 places lower than at the time of Caruana Galizia’s death.

  • Jeremy Hunt told the BBC that some taxes will go up, while government spending may need to fall.

    He said two mistakes were made in the mini-budget by Kwasi Kwarteng - cutting the top rate of tax and announcing it without an independent forecast.

    But he also praised his predecessor for help offered to people struggling with their energy bills.

    Mr Hunt said he agreed with the prime minister's goal of "solving the growth paradox", but added: "The way we went about it clearly wasn't right and that's why I'm sitting here now."

    Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, Mr Hunt said: "Taxes are not going to come down by as much as people hoped, and some taxes will have to go up.

    Britain's new finance minister Jeremy Hunt said on Saturday that some taxes will have to go up, signalling another abrupt policy U-turn by Prime Minister Liz Truss who is battling to save her leadership just over a month into her term.

     

    In an attempt to appease financial markets that have been in turmoil for three weeks, Ms Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng as her chancellor of the exchequer on Friday and scrapped parts of their controversial economic package.

    In a hurried news conference shortly after dismissing Mr Kwarteng, Ms Truss said the corporation tax rate would increase, abandoning her plan to keep it at current levels, and government spending would rise by less than previously planned.

    Big, unfunded tax cuts were a central plank of Ms Truss's original plans, but Mr Hunt said tax increases were on the cards.

    "We will have some very difficult decisions ahead," he told Sky News.

     

    "The thing that people want, the markets want, the country needs now, is stability," Mr Hunt said.

    "No chancellor can control the markets. But what I can do is show that we can pay for our tax and spending plans and that is going to need some very difficult decisions on both spending and tax."

    Mr Hunt said he had been sanctioned by Ms Truss to make further changes to her government's fiscal plans following two major U-turns on her tax-cutting agenda already.

    Asked on BBC radio if he had a clean slate and could change further elements of the tax cuts set out by his predecessor ahead of a medium term fiscal plan on October 31, Mr Hunt said: "Yes."

    Mr Hunt is due to announce the government's medium-term budget plans on October 31, a key test of its ability to show investors that it can restore its economic policy credibility.

    He said spending would not rise by as much as people would like, and all government departments were going to have to find more efficiencies than they were planning.

    "Some taxes will not be cut as quickly as people want, and some taxes will go up. So it's going to be difficult," he said.

    Mr Kwarteng's September 23 fiscal statement prompted a backlash in financial markets that was so ferocious that the Bank of England (BoE) had to intervene to prevent pension funds being caught up in the chaos as borrowing costs surged.

    Mr Hunt said he agreed with Truss's fundamental approach of seeking to spark economic growth but the way she and Mr Kwarteng went about it had not worked.

    "There were mistakes. It was a mistake when we're going to be asking for difficult decisions across the board on tax and spending to cut the rate of tax paid by the very wealthiest," he said.

    "It was a mistake to fly blind and to do these forecasts without giving people the confidence of the Office of Budget Responsibility saying that the sums add up.

    "The Prime Minister has recognised that, that's why I'm here."

    Ms Truss was due to spend the weekend trying to shore up her flagging support within the Conservative Party, with newspapers quoting politicians who questioned her ability to stay in the job.

    On Monday, the British government bond market faces a test when it will function for the first time without the emergency buying support provided by the BoE since September 28.

    "I'm going to be asking all government departments to find additional efficiency savings."

    But Mr Hunt, who was appointed as chancellor on Friday after Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked by the prime minister, refused to outline any details for his tax and spending plans.

    He told BBC Breakfast he was "not going to make any commitments" and reiterated he was just hours into the job.

    His comments come after the government's mini-budget last month, which included £45bn worth of tax cuts, and sparked turbulence in the financial markets.

    Addressing mistakes he said were made by the ex-chancellor, Mr Hunt said: "There were two mistakes - it was wrong to cut the top rate of tax for the very highest earners at a time where we're going to have to be asking for sacrifices from everyone to get through a very difficult period.

    "And it was wrong to fly blind and to announce those plans without reassuring people with the discipline of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that we actually can afford to pay for them."

     

    He said both of these were now in the process of "being put right".

    Mr Hunt said he would be meeting Treasury officials later and Liz Truss on Sunday.

    After just 39 days as prime minister, Ms Truss is facing huge pressure from within her party as key elements of the major economic plan she and the former chancellor set out in September have been scrapped.

    The prime minister is facing a backlash from Conservative MPs after announcing the government's second U-turn in a month.

    Friday's U-turn on plans to cut corporation tax followed an earlier reversal of plans to cut the 45p rate of income tax for the highest earners.

    One Tory MP described the party as being in a "state of despair", but Truss supporter Christopher Chope said "time will tell" if she had done enough to secure her position.

     

    Asked whether there should be a general election, Mr Hunt told the BBC: "What the country wants now is stability.

    "[Truss] has been prime minister for less than five weeks. When we are judged at a general election, we will be judged by what we deliver over the next 18 months by far more than what's happened over the last 18 weeks."

    The PM has described sacking Mr Kwarteng and scrapping another key economic policy as "difficult" and admitted in a short press conference on Friday that "parts of our mini-budget went further and faster" than the markets were expecting.

    In September, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights wrote a letter to Malta’s prime minister, Robert Abela, outlining her concerns about press freedom.

    “Freedom of expression, including media freedom and the safety of journalists, is a prerequisite of any democratic society,” the commissioner wrote, adding that it is “necessary to comply with international standards.”

    “We attach the utmost importance to holding the persons who commissioned and murdered Ms. Caruana Galizia accountable, and to counting our work to ensure that the environment journalists operate within is free," Abela replied.

Here are several ways China has evolved since Xi's been in charge.

Saiful Vai Kothay Tumi evacuation of civilians in southern Ukraine Bogura 7 heath 2023

Civilians in the country’s occupied south should evacuate to Russia, Moscow-installed officials there urged this week, in a sign that the Kremlin is worried about its hold on the strategic region  as Kyiv pushes to reclaim more land there after recent breakthroughs.

The head of the Moscow-appointed regional administration, Vladimir Saldo, without using the word “evacuation,” asked Moscow Thursday to welcome families from the Kherson region that want “to protect themselves” from what he described as constant Ukrainian shelling.

The Kremlin promptly agreed to support such efforts, with officials in the southern Russian region of Rostov saying the first arrivals were expected Friday, the state news agency Tass reported.

Western military analysts said the move underlined Russia’s growing concern over its ability to hold Kherson, just weeks after it claimed to annex the region and in light of sudden gains made by Ukraine’s military this month — its biggest advance in the south since Russian forces seized it early in the war.

“You don’t evacuate from a region that you have recently annexed (illegally) if you are confident of holding it,” said Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “I think we can read this as a sign that they are very worried about their ability to hold the west bank of the Dnieper River.”


Ukrainian soldiers check trenches left behind as Russian forces fled on Wednesday.Leo Correa / AP

As Ukraine pressed on, Russian forces retreated from the front lines they had established in the area and sought to set up new positions they could hold along the strategic waterway.

Saiful Vai Kothay Tumi evacuation of civilians in southern Ukraine Bogura 7 heath 2023

Just hours after Saldo’s comments, the deputy head of Kherson’s Russian-installed administration, Kirill Stremousov, rushed to clarify that this was not an evacuation but an offer that has been long in the making.

“No one is making plans to retreat,” he said in a video message, as he urged people not to panic.

The preparation to evacuate some civilians could mean that the Russians are anticipating that combat could extend to the city of Kherson itself, the U.K. Defense Ministry said in its assessment of the situation Thursday.

The city is a strategic gateway to the Black Sea and the neighboring Crimean Peninsula, and has been critical in cementing Moscow’s grasp on the area. It’s the only regional center that the Russians have controlled since the start of the war.

Losing Kherson would deal a major blow to the Kremlin, with Putin himself boasting that it had been “reunited” with Russia forever after the region became one of four occupied provinces that Russia claimed to have annexed last month.