Throughout accounts of 17th-century witch trials in Europe and North America, physical features alone were considered undeniable proof of witchcraft. The belief was that the devil branded witches’ bodies with symbolic, material marks – such as unusual growths or blemishes. This led to routine bodily inspections in witch trials. The discovery of such marks was thought to be strong medical and scientific evidence of witchcraft and frequently sealed the victim’s fate.
Here are just some of the anatomical features that historically would have been used to label someone a witch:
Are you a woman?
While men were occasionally accused of witchcraft, historical witch hunts overwhelmingly targeted women – particularly women who led an independent lifestyle (such as widows and spinsters) or who were outspoken and didn’t conform to societal norms. Historians estimate that more than 75% of those accused of witchcraft in the 16th and 17th centuries were female.
By this standard, if you identify as female today, you are one of approximately 3.95 billion potential “witches”.
How old are you?
Age was another factor in witch trials. Older women, especially those past childbearing age, were frequently suspected of witchcraft – particularly if they were a widow, owned property or lived alone.
Records suggest that more than half of those accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1563-1736 were over 40 years old. At this time, the average life expectancy was around 32 years of age.
Today, with around 1.4 billion women globally over 40, many more might have found themselves under similar suspicion by historical standards.
Do you have an extra nipple?
The “witch’s teat” was a common trait witch-hunters used to identify someone as being a witch. This extra nipple was thought to be used by witches to nurse so-called demonic familiars – often imagined to be small animals or imps. Witch-hunters would examine the chest or torso for any irregularity and classify it as a witch’s teat.
In reality, supernumerary nipples (or polythelia) are benign. These form during early embryonic development and in some people do not fully disappear.
Another feature sometimes mistaken for a supernumerary teat was the clitoris. Historical accounts suggest that women were sometimes convicted based on the size of this body part. Pamphlets from the time, which describe the process of identifying a “witches’ teat,” often mention a small protrusion located near a woman’s “fundament” or “privy place” – euphemisms for a woman’s genitals.
It’s estimated that around 5% of the world’s population have at least one extra nipple. They appear more often on the left-hand side of the chest and are more common in men. Harry Styles, who has openly discussed having four nipples, would perhaps have been far less inclined to
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Details of courts and tribunals opening times over the Christmas and New Year bank holidays.
Our courts and tribunals will temporarily close on various dates over the Christmas period.
The closure dates for this year are:
Wednesday 25 December 2024
Thursday 26 December 2024
Friday 27 December 2024
Wednesday 1 January 2025
Some magistrates’ courts will be open on 26 December 2024 and 1 January 2025, but for remand hearings only.
On Friday 27 December 2024, only County and Family Courts, Crown Courts, the High Court, Court of Appeal (Royal Courts of Justice and Rolls Building) and some tribunals will be closed. Magistrates’ courts and our Scotland tribunal offices will open on this day. In Scotland, our tribunal offices will also be closed on Thursday 2 January 2025.
Hearings that take place over the Christmas period may take place in person, or via video or telephone. Your hearing notice will confirm this.
Part of the Castlegate is to have a temporary surface installed in the next few weeks which will ensure the area will be safer.
The current flagstones would have a significant cost to fully repair– more than £1.5milion – which would then likely need changed anyway due to the major improvement works to link Union Street to the beach area.
The area is due to have the improvements as part of the City Centre and Beach Masterplan, which will reinstate the central role of Union Street while establishing stronger linkages north to the beach area via the Castlegate.
Bearing in mind the forthcoming major improvements and so as to not spend money on a full repair which would then need ripped out, a temporary cost-effective solution is to be installed in the area.
The temporary cost-effective solution is in the form of compacted road planings which is a waste material generated from the Council’s capital roads resurfacing programme.
The use of waste planings, delivered directly from other roadworks sites around Aberdeen, will also minimise the carbon cost in line with ACC’s commitment with Net Zero.
The road planings will be used to create a road surface for vehicular traffic, whilst pedestrian pavements of cassies will be repaired.
It is acknowledged that while the compacted road planings will not be the most aesthetically-pleasing of surfaces, the works will allow the area to be kept safe whilst minimising expenditure on an area which will soon be redeveloped as part of the CCMP.
The flagstones, which were laid in the early 1990s, will be retained for potential future use.
Sunderland’s countdown to Christmas is about to get underway.
Preparations for the festive season kick off with the city’s Christmas Switch On in Keel Square on Thursday 21 November.
A firm favourite in Sunderland’s events calendar, the switch on promises to be a wonderful family event as the city comes together to start the celebrations and officially kick off the festive season.
The entertainment gets underway from 5.30pm onwards with music to get everyone in the Christmas spirit and cartoon characters doing walkabouts, before Hits Radio’s breakfast show hosts Steve and Karen take to the stage to get the party started from 6pm onwards with a host of festive hits and sparkling entertainment.
There’ll be competitions aplenty, including the chance to win tickets for this year’s Jack and the Beanstalk panto at the Sunderland Empire and Disney on Ice at the Utilita Arena in Newcastle.
Everyone’s favourite ogre, Shrek will also be putting in a special appearance, followed by panto stars from Jack and the Beanstalk before Santa, the main man himself, takes to the stage to join in the fun and games.
The Mayor of Sunderland Councillor Allison Chisnall will then be joined by Steve and Karen, SAFC players and panto stars for the grand switch on at 7pm.
Councillor Chisnall, said: “Christmas is always such a special time of year. The annual Christmas Switch On marks start of the city’s countdown to the big day and it’s something that families from across Sunderland and beyond really look forward to each year.
“We’ve got a fantastic programme of entertainment lined up for this year’s event and what better way to start the festive season.”
To coincide with the Sunderland Christmas Light Switch On, The Fire Station is also launching FireSide, its new, free-to-enter festive marquee experience in front of The Fire Station building. Offering a bar, food and cosy seating areas, this opens at 4pm on Thursday 21 November and runs through December. Visitors coming along to the switch on might also want to take advantage of some of the other fantastic restaurants and bars around Keel Square.
The launch of Christmas has been organised by Sunderland City Council and supported by Sunderland BID and Hits Radio (formerly Metro Radio)
Sharon Appleby, Chief Executive of Sunderland Business Improvement District (BID), said: “The Christmas light switch on signals the start of a really important period for businesses in the city centre.
“There are so many great venues, wonderful retailers and fabulous events in the city centre that can be visited and enjoyed. We hope to see lots of people join us at the light switch on and then to come back and do their shopping and enjoy the season in the city.”
Millions of people, including families, pensioners, carers and those struggling to find work are set to benefit from Autumn Budget reforms to boost work and tackle poverty.
Welfare safety net will be strengthened with a new Fair Repayment Rate, an increase to benefits and an extension of vital crisis support.
Carers will also see a boost to the amount they can earn whilst retaining their entitlement to Carer’s Allowance.
A £240 million package for the Get Britain Working White Paper will shift department’s focus from welfare to work.
The first steps in the Work and Pensions Secretary’s plan to drive up opportunity and drive down poverty across the UK were unveiled in the Government Budget yesterday (Wednesday 30 October).
As the department shifts its focus from welfare to work, a £240 million package will open up opportunities to millions of people left behind and denied the opportunity to get into work and get on at work.
These major changes will address spiralling economic inactivity and a record 2.8 million people locked out of work due to long term sickness and are part of the Government’s ambition to reach an 80% employment rate.
The Get Britain Working White Paper will develop:
A new jobs and careers service to help get more people into work, and get on in their work, by linking jobseekers with employers, with an increased focus on skills and careers;
Joined-up work, health and skills plans to tackle economic inactivity and boost employment, led by Mayors and local areas;
A new Youth Guarantee so that every young person is given the opportunity to earn or learn.
Those with caring responsibilities will able to earn more without losing government support, with the Carer’s Allowance earnings threshold boosted by £45 a week to £196, benefitting more than 60,000 carers by 2029/30. This is the biggest ever cash increase in the earnings threshold for Carer’s Allowance. This is alongside an independent review into Carer’s Allowance Overpayments led by Liz Sayce OBE.
As well as boosting pensions and benefits through annual uprating, a new Fair Repayment Rate will be introduced, reducing Universal Credit deductions. This will mean 1.2 million of the poorest households will benefit by an average of £420 a year.
£1 billion, including Barnett impact, will be invested to extend the Household Support Fund in England by a full year, on top of the six months already announced, and to maintain Discretionary Housing Payments in England and Wales. This will help struggling families and pensioners facing the greatest financial hardship.
Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall said:
We promised change, and that is what we will deliver.
For too long, millions of people have been denied opportunities to work and build a better life, and too many children are growing up in poverty, harming their life chances and our country’s future.
This Budget shows the first steps in our plan to drive up opportunity and drive down poverty in every corner of the country.
There is still much more to do, but this Budget has shown change has begun.
Measures announced today will also improve how the department detects and prevents fraud and error, so support is targeted where it is needed most and taxpayers know every pound is spent wisely. These changes are expected to save £7.6 billion by 2029/30.
The Secretary of State has also concluded her annual review of the State Pension and benefit rates, which will see:
A 4.1 percent increase to the basic and new State Pensions due to the Triple Lock commitment – meaning those on the full rate of the new State Pension will now see an increase of over £470 per year.
A 1.7 percent increase to Universal Credit and other working-age benefits – worth an average £12.50 per month for a family on Universal Credit.
Further Information
The Get Britain Working White Paper will be published in Autumn and will set out the government’s plans to reform employment support and tackle the root causes of record-high inactivity.
Welfare reforms announced at Autumn Budget include:
A new Fair Repayment Rate to reduce Universal Credit deductions from 25% to 15%.
Raising the Carer’s Allowance earnings threshold by £45 a week
Uprating disability benefits and working age benefits including Universal Credit by 1.7% in line with the year to September 2024 Consumer Prices Index figure.
Uprating basic and new State Pensions and the standard minimum guarantee in Pension Credit by 4.1% in line with the average weekly earnings figure for the year to May to July 2024.
Improving fraud, error and debt detection and prevention.
Property values in New Zealand fell -0.5% in October according to CoreLogic’s hedonic Home Value Index (HVI) – the eighth drop in a row – taking the total decline in values since February to -5.1%.
Values across Aotearoa New Zealand now stand at $805,984, which is around 18% below the post-COVID cyclical peak but still about 16% higher than the pre-COVID level from March 2020.
Around the main centres, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington dropped by -1.2% in October, with both Kirikiriroa Hamilton and Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland down by -0.7%. Ōtepoti Dunedin’s fall was slightly smaller (-0.4%), while Tauranga was flat in October, and Ōtautahi Christchurch edged up by 0.2%.
Although the property market remained relatively sluggish in October, the pace of decline has roughly halved in the past couple of months after an average fall of around -0.9% from May to August.
CoreLogic NZ Chief Property Economist, Kelvin Davidson said that could be a sign of an approaching floor for property values.
““The latest fall in national home values suggests that even though mortgage rates have already dropped quite sharply, the influence of job losses and the wider feelings of reduced job security are playing the more important role at present. This was echoed in the latest ANZ consumer confidence survey. That said, it’s not all one-way traffic for property values, with Ōtautahi Christchurch continuing to show relative resilience amongst the main centres, alongside Tauranga in October.”
“It’s hard to prove categorically, but there’s certainly a ‘vibe’ out there that The Garden City is still considered an attractive place for people outside the area to relocate to, driven by both lifestyle and affordability.”
“There has also been a change in the on-the-ground mood around Aotearoa NZ’s wider property market in the past few weeks. That shift has been seen across a range of segments, from property valuers to individual investors, to developers and construction industry consultants.”
“Rising sentiment may take some time to hit the ‘hard data’, but there’s a sense that the end could be in sight for the recent downturn.”
“For property investors in particular the falls in mortgage rates are key, flowing directly through to better cashflow on a typical rental purchase – or in other words reduced losses – and smaller top-ups from other income. Increased interest deductibility supports that effect too.”
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
Each of Tamaki Makaurau Auckland’s sub-markets saw property values decline in October, although the falls in Papakura and Franklin were marginal (-0.1%). Elsewhere, the falls ranged from -0.4% in Rodney, up to -0.8% in Auckland City and -0.9% in Manukau.
Generally speaking, values across Tamaki Makaurau Auckland are still around 21-24% lower than the post-COVID peak (apart from a drop of closer to 26% in Waitakere), while the falls since the more recent ‘mini peak’ at the start of this year have typically been between -7% and -9%.
Mr Davidson added: “Auckland’s property market continues to be weighed down by abundant supply, both in terms of existing properties listed for sale as well as the continued pipeline of new-builds being completed. However, there are signs in a market such as Papakura that values have started to flatten out to some degree, so it’ll be interesting to see if the falls also lessen or stop altogether in other parts of the super-city in the next few months too.”
Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington
The wider Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington area underperformed in October, with Porirua down by -0.5%, and then the falls increasing to -0.7% to -0.8% in the Hutt Valley, and to more than 1% in both Kapiti Coast and Wellington City itself. Porirua has been slightly more resilient than elsewhere over a wider three-month horizon – while across the rest of Wellington, values are down by close to 3% or more since July.
“Wellington looks to be a good example of where job insecurity is outweighing the benefits to sentiment and households’ finances of lower mortgage rates. This could also make it an interesting test case for property values, in terms of the strength of any recovery in 2025 amidst the backdrop of labour market weakness.”
Regional results
Reflecting the counteracting influences of lower mortgage rates and job losses, property value trends across many of the provincial markets remained patchy in October. Nelson, Whanganui, Rotorua, and Gisborne all edged higher, while Queenstown was stable. But value falls of -0.7% or more were seen in Invercargill, Whangarei, and Napier.
“Putting aside the normal monthly variability that you see in any part of the cycle, it’s interesting to note the recent divergences over the year as a whole,” Mr Davidson noted, pointing to areas such as Napier and Whangarei which were down by -7% to -9% since the latest mini-peak, compared to Whanganui and Invercargill, which were down by -1 to -2%.
“Lower house prices in the latter two areas may have given their markets some insulation. Of course, the affordability argument certainly doesn’t apply in somewhere like Queenstown, where the market has only fallen slightly in 2024 despite a median value of $1.5m.”
Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region
The Immigration Department (ImmD) mounted a cross-boundary joint operation with Guangxi Public Security Department, Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department and Shenzhen Frontier Inspection Station in July and August under the co-ordination of the Exit and Entry Administration of the People’s Republic of China. The operation successfully neutralised a cross-boundary forgery syndicate, resulting in the arrest of a total of 201 persons and the seizure of a large amount of forgery equipment and forged documents.
In May this year, Mainland authorities unearthed crucial intelligence related to a syndicate arranging Mainlanders to take up illegal employment in Hong Kong. The ImmD immediately collaborated with the Mainland authorities to conduct in-depth investigations and successfully identified a cross-boundary forgery syndicate specialised in recruiting Mainlanders to take up illegal employment in Hong Kong and providing them with accommodation and forged Hong Kong identity cards to seek illegal employments. The forgery syndicate had set up workshops on the Mainland for producing forged documents, and they would dispatch the forged Hong Kong identity cards by express delivery to Hong Kong syndicate members, who would then distribute the forged Hong Kong identity cards to the illegal workers.
The ImmD swiftly launched an operation codenamed “Vanguard” to eradicate the syndicate in Hong Kong. During the operation, ImmD investigators retrieved a batch of suspicious parcels sent out from Mainland forgery workshops and disguised as couriers to deliver the suspicious parcels. As a result, several Hong Kong syndicate members were apprehended, and a number of forged Hong Kong identity cards were seized. Moreover, the ImmD raided a total of 69 premises, including 37 residential premises and 32 working places, and arrested a total of 97 persons, including a syndicate mastermind, nine syndicate members, 67 suspected illegal workers and 20 suspected employers, aged 18 to 64. Ten syndicate members, including the mastermind, comprise five men and five women, consisting of three Hong Kong residents and seven Mainlanders, aged 18 to 61. The 67 arrested suspected illegal workers comprise 34 men and 33 women, including 65 Mainlanders, one Indonesian and one Vietnamese Recognizance Form holder issued by the ImmD, aged 22 to 64. ImmD investigators also seized 21 forged Hong Kong identity cards, 18 copies of forged Hong Kong identity cards and two forged documents related to construction workers. Through this large-scale cross-boundary joint operation, the cross-boundary forgery syndicate has been neutralised. The investigation is still ongoing, and more persons involved in the case may be arrested.
On the Mainland side, three forgery workshops were smashed and a total of 104 offenders were arrested, including 18 syndicate masterminds and ring members, and 12 pieces of forgery equipment were seized.
An ImmD spokesman said, “Under the laws of Hong Kong, anyone who uses or possesses a forged identity card commits an offence. Offenders are liable to prosecution and, upon conviction, a maximum penalty of a fine of $100,000 and 10 years’ imprisonment. Any person who without lawful authority or reasonable excuse transfers to another person a Hong Kong identity card commits an offence. Offenders are liable to prosecution and, upon conviction, a maximum penalty of a fine of $100,000 and 10 years’ imprisonment.”
The spokesman warned, “Any person who contravenes a condition of stay in force in respect of him or her shall be guilty of an offence. Also, visitors are not allowed to take employment in Hong Kong, whether paid or unpaid, without the permission of the Director of Immigration. Offenders are liable to prosecution and upon conviction face a maximum fine of $50,000 and up to two years’ imprisonment. Aiders and abettors are also liable to prosecution and penalties. As stipulated in section 38AA of the Immigration Ordinance, an illegal immigrant, a person who is the subject of a removal order or a deportation order, an overstayer or a person who was refused permission to land is prohibited from taking any employment, whether paid or unpaid, or establishing or joining in any business. Offenders are liable upon conviction to a maximum fine of $50,000 and up to three years’ imprisonment.”
The spokesman reiterated that it is a serious offence to employ people who are not lawfully employable. Under the Immigration Ordinance, the maximum penalty for an employer employing a person who is not lawfully employable, i.e. an illegal immigrant, a person who is the subject of a removal order or a deportation order, an overstayer or a person who was refused permission to land, has been significantly increased from a fine of $350,000 and three years’ imprisonment to a fine of $500,000 and 10 years’ imprisonment to reflect the gravity of such offences. The director, manager, secretary, partner, etc, of the company concerned may also bear criminal liability. The High Court has laid down sentencing guidelines that the employer of an illegal worker should be given an immediate custodial sentence.
According to the court sentencing, employers must take all practicable steps to determine whether a person is lawfully employable prior to employment. Apart from inspecting a prospective employee’s identity card, the employer has the explicit duty to make enquiries regarding the person and ensure that the answers would not cast any reasonable doubt concerning the lawful employability of the person. The court will not accept failure to do so as a defence in proceedings. It is also an offence if an employer fails to inspect the job seeker’s valid travel document if the job seeker does not have a Hong Kong permanent identity card. Offenders are liable upon conviction to a maximum fine of $150,000 and to imprisonment for one year. In that connection, the spokesman would like to remind all employers not to defy the law by employing illegal workers. The ImmD will continue to take resolute enforcement action to combat such offences.
Under the existing mechanism, the ImmD will, as a standard procedure, conduct an initial screening of vulnerable persons, including illegal workers, illegal immigrants, sex workers and foreign domestic helpers, who are arrested during any operation with a view to ascertaining whether they are trafficking in persons (TIP) victims. When any TIP indicator is revealed in the initial screening, the ImmD officers will conduct a full debriefing and identification by using a standardised checklist to ascertain the presence of TIP elements, such as threats and coercion in the recruitment phase and the nature of exploitation. Identified TIP victims will be provided with various forms of support and assistance, including urgent intervention, medical services, counselling, shelter or temporary accommodation and other supporting services. The ImmD calls on TIP victims to report crimes to the relevant departments immediately.
Headline: Five Western N.C. State Parks to Reopen Nov. 1, Eight Parks to Remain Closed
Five Western N.C. State Parks to Reopen Nov. 1, Eight Parks to Remain Closed jejohnson6
Crowders Mountain, Gorges, Grandfather Mountain and Lake Norman state parks, as well as Rendezvous Mountain, will reopen at least partially on Nov. 1, the Division of Parks and Recreation announced. These parks were temporarily closed through October after impacts from Hurricane Helene.
The following areas are open at each park:
• Crowders Mountain — trails and day-use will reopen, all camping will remain closed through November
• Gorges — Grassy Ridge Access (visitor center, trails to Rainbow and Upper Bearwallow Falls, RV/trailer/tent camping and cabins) will reopen; the backcountry area (Frozen Creek Access, including Auger Hole and Canebrake trails and backcountry campsites) will remain closed
• Grandfather Mountain — most trails and campsites will reopen; Profile Trail, Profile Connector Trail, and Profile Campsite will remain closed
• Lake Norman — day-use and tent/trailer/RV and group campsites will reopen; some sections of mountain bike trail may be closed; cabins remain closed to new reservations; existing reservations are being honored
• Rendezvous Mountain — all areas
The following parks remain closed entirely: Chimney Rock, Elk Knob, Lake James, Mount Mitchell, New River, South Mountains, and Stone Mountain state parks, as well as Mount Jefferson State Natural Area.
“We are very excited to be able to reopen these parks, and we hope to open additional facilities in November,” said State Parks Director Brian Strong. “We know our visitors have been missing our closed parks, and we hope these reopenings will help our neighbors, local towns, and communities.”
The division continues to assist with emergency and rescue efforts in western North Carolina. To date, over 150 division staff have been deployed with the North Carolina Emergency Operations Center as well as to assist with Incident Management Teams and with cleanup projects at western state parks.
“Our priority first and foremost is visitor and staff safety,” Strong said. “There are areas that will be marked closed due to hazardous trees and branches with a high likelihood of falling as well as unsteady bridges and washed-out trails. We ask that visitors follow signage and do not attempt to access areas that have been closed off.”
Some of the remaining closed parks may reopen partially in November, depending on progress with cleanup and hazard mitigation. Chimney Rock, Mount Mitchell, and South Mountains will be undergoing extended closure. Reservations for campsites anticipated to be closed have been refunded in full.
About North Carolina State Parks North Carolina State Parks manages more than 262,000 acres of iconic landscape within North Carolina’s state parks, state recreation areas and state natural areas. It administers the N.C. Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, including its local grants program, as well as a state trails program, North Carolina Natural and Scenic Rivers and more, all with a mission dedicated to conservation, recreation and education. The state parks system welcomes more than 19 million visitors annually.
About the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources The N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (DNCR) manages, promotes, and enhances the things that people love about North Carolina – its diverse arts and culture, rich history, and spectacular natural areas. Through its programs, the department enhances education, stimulates economic development, improves public health, expands accessibility, and strengthens community resiliency.
The department manages over 100 locations across the state, including 27 historic sites, seven history museums, two art museums, five science museums, four aquariums, 35 state parks, four recreation areas, dozens of state trails and natural areas, the North Carolina Zoo, the State Library, the State Archives, the N.C. Arts Council, the African American Heritage Commission, the American Indian Heritage Commission, the State Historic Preservation Office, the Office of State Archaeology, the Highway Historical Markers program, the N.C. Land and Water Fund, and the Natural Heritage Program. For more information, please visit www.dncr.nc.gov.
The UConn Foundation today announced that it will receive $500,000 from Travelers spread over the next five years to help cover the cost of room and board for qualified UConn students at the new, 200-bed residence hall on Pratt Street in Hartford.
This marks a pivotal moment for the UConn Hartford campus, which will offer student housing for the first time when the apartment-style units open in fall 2026. The project involves transforming a former law office into a vibrant, residential community, part of the university’s broader strategy to elevate student education and experiences.
“Thanks to this generous gift from Travelers, more students will have access to our new residence hall, which will have a transformative impact on their education and lives,” says Mark Overmyer-Velázquez, campus dean and chief administrative officer at UConn Hartford. “The residence hall will serve as a catalyst for learning as well as connecting students to the rich historical, cultural, political, and business resources of our capital city.”
In a 2023 survey, about 70% of UConn Hartford undergraduates expressed interest in nearby student housing. Many students noted that affordability is crucial, given that most currently reside with parents.
The new housing initiative aligns with UConn’s vision, alongside state and local leaders, to establish Hartford as a “college town” where students play an integral role in the city’s cultural landscape.
“Our relationship with UConn spans decades, and we are proud to be a part of the university’s efforts in expanding its presence in downtown Hartford,” says Andy Bessette, executive vice president and chief administrative officer for Travelers. “UConn’s dedication to excellence in education is why it was one of our inaugural partners when we started our school-to-career pipeline program, Travelers EDGE, 17 years ago. Together, we are helping to build a brighter future for our city and state.”
Travelers EDGE, a program that aims to give students increased access to higher education and career preparation, has supported 133 UConn scholars since its inception, with 93 interning at Travelers and 35 graduates accepting full-time jobs at the company.
“We are thrilled that Travelers is making this transformational investment in UConn, our students, and the city of Hartford through this $500,000 donation,” says Nathan Fuerst, UConn’s vice president for student life and enrollment.
“This visionary gift ensures the success of UConn’s expanded footprint in Hartford and helps alleviate the financial barriers facing many students who choose to live downtown. It also brings more scholars to downtown, where many will stay and establish deep roots,” Fuerst says.
The new residence hall is one of many initiatives UConn has underway to deepen its ties with the capital city. The University recently opened its new Community Intersections & Innovation Space for research and academic use near the XL Center and is opening a café for students next fall in the Hartford Times main campus building.
The UConn Foundation also recently launched the Hartford Residential Scholars Enhancement Fund to raise additional funds to support qualifying UConn Hartford students. Find more information about supporting the Hartford Residential Scholars Enhancement Fund [here].
For 10 weeks this summer, Gianna Socci worked hard for a sole purpose.
As if her gift was the plunder of information from the stacks of libraries in southwestern Connecticut, piece by piece she stitched together thoughts, contentions, and beliefs, her own cheeks pale with study, as she infused life into the inanimate body that’s become her very own creation.
“I’d never taken on a beast this size before,” Socci ’25 (CLAS) says. “I would get very stressed out that I wasn’t going to be able to finish this. I wasn’t going to be able to write something that made sense. I wasn’t going to be able to bring this all together and I feared I bit off more than I could chew.”
Clinging to the hope the next day or the next would bring success, Socci labored to coax to life the 62 pages that have become her greatest academic triumph to date: “Monstrosity on Trial: Claiming Legal Personhood for Frankenstein’s Monster.”
This is a project Socci conceived nearly two years ago, when as a sophomore she sought to convert her Introduction to Literary Studies course into an honors credit, which requires a larger research project, namely a more in-depth look at one of the books read that semester.
“I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health.” – Victor Frankenstein in describing his work in Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein”
As an English and political science double major who expects one day to take up the study of law, Socci heeded the advice of associate professor Dwight Codr and looked at Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel “Frankenstein” through a legal lens.
What started as an honors conversion paper became a much larger Summer Undergraduate Research Fund (SURF) grant proposal, replete with a reading plan of an admittedly ambitious 37 works, including dense legal case studies, she says. The funding allowed her the space in June, July, and August to focus on her work, without worrying about money.
“Research in the humanities is very rare to begin with,” she says, “and I don’t think a lot of people understand what it entails. When you’re a STEM major, you can lay out lab steps, you can show people graphs, diagrams, and lab methods. It’s very quantitative, whereas humanities research is reading, taking notes, thinking, and writing.”
It’s nonetheless important, she argues.
Not the Frankenstein you might imagine
One of the first things Socci says she was shocked to learn when reading “Frankenstein” the first time two years ago was that the character of Frankenstein, contrary to popular belief, is not the monster depicted in the story.
Gianna Socci ’25 (CLAS) (Contributed photo)
Victor Frankenstein is the young doctor who brings to life an 8-foot-tall monster – born of inanimate body parts he stole from graves and mortuaries. Most contemporary depictions of Frankenstein wrongly show him as the flat-headed, green, almost zombie-like monster with bolts in his neck.
That is, in fact, Frankenstein’s “creature,” who in Shelley’s book is never given a name, referred to only by such descriptors as “devil,” “thing,” and “ogre.”
“The other thing that struck me – and this might just be my poli-sci brain at work – was that she included three legal proceedings in the novel, three specific examples of courtroom trials, and that’s not something that’s talked about. You typically think of ‘Frankenstein’ as a very science-fiction text,” Socci says.
Those trials, in which the defendants aren’t in fact guilty of the crimes they’re accused, got Socci thinking about how the law weaves itself through the novel and found herself wondering: What if Frankenstein’s monster was granted legal personhood and able to stand trial for his wrongdoings?
Before she could answer, she needed to tackle the idea of what it means to be a legal person and how that idea has been used over time. She turned to legal theory, philosophy, history, and Shelley’s text for answers.
“Legal personhood is a status, which means someone has rights and privileges but can also be held responsible for their actions,” she explains. “It’s twofold and it’s been expanded and contracted over time to include and exclude so many different things and people.
“Slaves had a very limited form of personhood. Women had a very limited form of personhood. Animals at one time were granted legal personhood and could be put on trial, which is completely absurd,” she continues. “The law is flexible and almost subject to the politics of the time. That reminded me, as a citizen, as a woman in contemporary times, the importance of paying attention to that.”
“My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement. Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might realise.” – Victor Frankenstein in describing his work in Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein”
Things like cognition and competency are used in helping distinguish personhood, even intent and mental capacity. And when Socci looked to the novel for these characteristics as they relate to the monster, her conclusion was clear.
“He is a completely cognizant being who acted with intent,” she says. “He was very aware of what he was doing. He could express himself. He was extremely human in every way but his physical appearance. Violence is never the answer, and his reasoning for violence is flawed, but it’s reasoning, nonetheless. He’s angry, and he’s acting in a very methodical way. He is totally eligible to stand trial.”
‘Abstractions rule our lives’
Socci says that at the outset of her research, when telling people how she was spending her summer, she started to wonder why she was even bothering. Arguing about whether Frankenstein’s monster could be held criminally liable for his actions is an exercise in the abstract.
Except it is relevant, she was reminded.
In an interview with an Australian professor who’d written about personhood, she asked why any of this mattered.
“He said abstractions rule our lives. These legal definitions, these philosophical foundations are what govern our whole being,” she says. “We don’t really think of ourselves in legal terms that often, so it can seem unimportant. But it’s how we have the right to vote. It’s how we have the right to express ourselves. It’s how we’re seen by the government.”
Suddenly, what once was hypothetical was much more concrete.
The European Union this year adopted the AI Act, Socci notes, which, in part, rates various artificial intelligence technologies on their risk level – high-risk AI is more autonomous and can operate with minimal human intervention, for example. The AI Act seeks to regulate high-risk artificial intelligence.
Consider Hollywood movies like “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” in which the artificial life form, Ultron, seeks to destroy. Technology advances rapidly and might not be that far off from the movies.
“If an AI is a sentient being and it decides to act out on its own will and is harming someone, we’re going to have to start thinking about liability,” Socci says. “My theory holds the monster accountable and therefore would hold the AI accountable. Then, if you can hold the AI accountable, shouldn’t they also have rights and be able to vote if we’re talking about the dual edge of legal personhood.”
Illustration from Frankenstein (Adobe stock)
Socci surmises that humans will be unlikely to put robots and technology on the same level as themselves, but that conversation may very well need to be had, which means the hypothetical turns real.
In the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that gave corporations the right to make political donations, the reasoning, Socci says, is that businesses have a right to free speech, in this case through their dollar, and that can’t be infringed upon.
“Legal personhood is not the reason for that decision, but if you go through the legal text, the chief justice uses very personifying language when talking about corporations, saying they can bring a good perspective into the democratic dialogue. And suddenly, corporations can talk like people. This tendency to personify the inanimate is where we see legal personhood bleeding into our contemporary scheme,” she says.
A story about injustice
In a planned career as a lawyer, Socci says she’ll take many of the things she’s learned from this project and apply them to work with abused and neglected children, who oftentimes need an advocate to protect their rights.
And in a way, children are a little like the monster – seeking to belong, looking to be molded, hungry for learning. Victor Frankenstein’s rejection of the monster, in the same way a parent might reject a child, results in lifelong ramifications.
“You might feel sad for the monster because all he really wants is to be part of the human community,” Socci says. “There’s a whole segment of the book in which he is watching the DeLacey family from far away in his hovel. He realizes they’re poor, so he starts leaving food on their steps. He shovels their driveway. He helps them out despite the fact he’s been rejected by his creator.”
Socci says that while there are dozens of ways one could analyze the story, for her, “Frankenstein” boils down to a tale of injustice.
“We hear the word ‘monster,’ and we think ‘beast.’ We’re scared. Something’s uncivilized. Something is rowdy. Something is dangerous. But the monster, in the beginning, is anything but that,” she says. “He’s a very rational individual who just wants to be close to someone. I think Shelley is asking us to think about the definitions we’ve applied to others.”
And that interpretation may become part three of “Monstrosity on Trial” – the honors conversion project turned SURF grant award, yet-to-become English honors thesis.
“I don’t think there’s going to be another time in my life, unless I become an author, when I’ll have dedicated hours for researching and writing, not worrying about the income I’m missing out on,” Socci says of the SURF grant. “It was honestly a privilege to have this experience.”
The value of exports and imports of services during September 2024 is given in the following table.
International Trade in Services
(US$ million)
Month
Receipts (Exports)
Payments (Imports)
July – 2024
30,580 (16.6)
15,903 (15.7)
August – 2024
30,340 (5.7)
16,423 (8.8)
September – 2024
32,579 (14.6)
16,507 (13.2)
Notes: (i) Data are provisional; and (ii) Figures in parentheses are growth rates over the corresponding month of the previous year which have been revised on the basis of balance of payments statistics.
Ajit Prasad Deputy General Manager (Communications)
The Reserve Bank today released data on India’s invisibles as per the IMF’s Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM6) format for April – June of 2024-25.
Ajit Prasad Deputy General Manager (Communications)
Data on lending and deposit rates of scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) (excluding regional rural banks and small finance banks) received during the month of October 2024 are set out in Tables 1 to 7.
Highlights:
Lending Rates:
The weighted average lending rate (WALR) on fresh rupee loans of SCBs stood at 9.37 per cent in September 2024 (9.41 per cent in August 2024).
The WALR on outstanding rupee loans of SCBs was placed at 9.90 per cent in September 2024 (9.91 per cent in August 2024).1
1-Year median Marginal Cost of fund-based Lending Rate (MCLR) of SCBs remained unchanged at 8.95 per cent in October 2024 from that of September 2024.
Deposit Rates:
The weighted average domestic term deposit rate (WADTDR) on fresh rupee term deposits of SCBs stood at 6.54 per cent in September 2024 as compared to 6.46 per cent in August 2024.
The weighted average domestic term deposit rate (WADTDR) on outstanding rupee term deposits of SCBs was placed at 6.95 per cent in September 2024 (6.93 per cent in August 2024).1
Ajit Prasad Deputy General Manager (Communications)
The title of this panel is “The Future of Finance”. I know this is an issue you have thought a lot about and one that has been a key focus area for the BIS throughout your tenure as General Manager. Why is the topic so important? How should the financial system change?
Financial innovation is important because finance is important – it is the bloodstream of the real economy.
Today’s financial system falls short in many dimensions: many financial transactions are too slow; many are too costly; for these reasons, useful transactions don’t take place. And in too many countries, too few people are able to access financial services. Improving the functioning of the financial system could make everyone better off.
It is appropriate for the private sector to take the lead in financial innovation. But the public sector has a role as a catalyst for innovation, for instance, by providing the pipes and rails on which finance runs.
Many public institutions – including central banks – are not natural innovators. They may lack experience, expertise and budgets.
Moreover, many countries face similar challenges.
For this reason, there can be great value in working together.
That is why we at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) established the BIS Innovation Hub as a mechanism for collaboration among central banks to develop technological public goods.
When we first came up with this concept, the idea was to have a small unit of four staff members, based in Basel. It quickly became apparent that the appetite among our member central banks to work together and innovate went far beyond that.
Today we have more than 100 staff working in our seven Innovation Hub centres in eight locations throughout North America, Europe and Asia, as well as a strategic partnership with the Innovation Centre of the New York Federal Reserve.
The Innovation Hub undertakes projects across six broad themes: (i) suptech and regtech, (ii) next generation financial market infrastructures, (iii) open finance, (iv) cyber security, (v) green finance and (vi) central bank digital currency, or CBDC. Our CBDC work accounts for a large part of the Innovation Hub’s project portfolio and certainly accounts for much of the public attention. But we have made important contributions in each theme.
Since establishing the Innovation Hub, we have completed 28 projects, with another 27 currently under way. Central banks, of course, are doing their own innovations, and there are many other initiatives under way by both the public sector and the private sector.
While all of the technological innovation has been important, it would be fair to say that it has had modest real-world impact to date. If you compare the degree of progress in the application of digital technologies in, say, the communications industry to that in the financial industry, I am sure you will agree.
The issue is not the technology itself. As I mentioned, there have been great advances there.
What has been lacking is a vision of how the various initiatives should fit together, and of what the financial system of the future should look like and how it should function.
Together with Nandan Nilekani – Chairman of Infosys and the driving force behind India’s digital public infrastructure initiatives – I wrote a paper earlier this year that laid out such a vision. We call it the “Finternet”. The aim of the Finternet is to use technology to make the financial system much more user-centric and to eliminate many of the frictions that add cost and complexity to today’s financial system. It does not advocate for a specific technology, but instead aims to add some guidance about what we want to achieve.
Let me delve more deeply into the Finternet. What does it involve, concretely?
The Finternet rests on three broad pillars. The first is a robust economic and financial architecture. The second is the application of advanced technology. The third is a sound legal and regulatory basis. Let me address each in turn.
The basic economic and financial architecture would resemble that of today’s financial system. As is the case today, there would be a two-tier banking system. Central bank money would be at the core, with commercial bank money accounting for the bulk of the money used day to day. This money, however, would have a more advanced digital representation. We would have tokenised central bank money, which could exist in wholesale form – the digital equivalent of central bank reserves – or retail form – the equivalent of digital banknotes. And we would have tokenised commercial bank deposits.
But tokenising money is just the first step. To get the real benefits of tokenisation you need to combine money with other financial assets, ideally residing on the same ledger.
Government bonds strike me as a natural starting point. These are incredibly important assets in today’s financial system. They serve as the basis for pricing all other financial assets.
Once you have money and government bonds residing on the same platform, you essentially have the basis of the current financial system. Adding other assets to the platform would naturally follow.
Tokenising financial assets would bring many benefits. In particular, if the assets were on a common ledger, there would be much less need for complex messaging and clearing, which are the source of so much cost and delays in today’s financial system. Tokenised assets can settle atomically, helping to further reduce the time needed for financial transactions. And tokenised assets can be programmed. This could open up a huge array of financial transactions that are not possible today.
Of course, not all assets will be tokenised and not all tokenised assets will reside on the same ledger. So we need some way of moving assets across ledgers and from the tokenised to the non-tokenised world. Technology can also help achieve this.
Other technologies can also help to turn the Finternet into reality. For example, compliance with anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism regulations – which I would emphasise is hugely important – can also be extremely costly. Technology should allow us to automate such checks, allowing for greater reliability, lower costs and faster processing speeds. Data governance and privacy would draw on the latest privacy-preserving technology. There are many related topics we explore through our projects. One good example is Project Mandala, which has shown how to embed regulatory compliance in cross-border transaction protocols. Beyond economics and technology, the Finternet will also rest on a sound legal and regulatory basis. At a minimum, this should respect all existing laws and governance measures. Privacy, cyber security and related concerns will also need to be addressed. However, technology should also allow us to achieve greater security in the financial system.
This all sounds very promising in principle. But can it be delivered? How could one turn the Finternet vision into a reality?
Absolutely. Indeed, we are already taking active steps to turn it into reality, including through our Innovation Hub projects.
Let me give you a concrete example of one such project, called Project Agorá.
This is probably our largest Innovation Hub Project to date. We have teamed up with six central banks and more than 40 private sector institutions, coordinated by the Institute for International Finance. I should mention that Santander is one of the participants.
The specific aim of Project Agorá is to look at whether, using tokenised deposits integrated with tokenised wholesale central bank money, we can streamline cross-border payments.
This is an area ripe with inefficiencies, and where services in some jurisdictions have actually worsened in recent years due to the shrinkage of the correspondent banking system. One important reason is that the system, by and large, rests on legacy systems. This implies long sequences of messages being sent back and forth, across national borders, using systems that do not necessary communicate with each other very well. The various regulatory compliance measures – which are particularly important in cross-border transactions – often require manual processes, which add delays and lead to errors.
In principle, using tokenised assets residing on unified ledgers could ease many of these burdens. Transactions using tokenised assets can settle atomically – that is immediately – with all parts of the transaction settling at once. Compliance with regulatory norms can be embedded programmatically inside the tokens. So they will be adhered to with certainty and without the need for manual intervention.
So this is a big project, with big potential gains.
But even more than the specific application, what really excites me about Project Agorá is that it has central banks and commercial banks working together to craft a structure that could form the basis for a future financial system.
I mentioned before the useful catalytic role for central banks in initiating technological innovation. But central banks cannot do it alone. The two-tier banking system lies at the heart of today’s financial system. The system needs money. But very little money comes from the central bank. Commercial bank money provides the bulk of it.
The two-tier banking system helps deliver two foundational principles. The first is the singleness of money. This ensures that a euro is a euro, whether it is the banknote in my pocket or in my deposit at Santander or any other bank. The second is settlement finality, which comes about through the final settlement of all transactions on the balance sheet of the central bank.
We do not know what the financial system of the future will look like. But it is hard for me to imagine that it will not require a two-tier banking system. This means that as well as tokenised central bank money – particularly in wholesale form – it will require banks to provide their customers with tokenised deposits. Project Agorá provides a powerful use case, and I hope that it will spur further innovation.
At the same time, cross-border payments can be a controversial topic. For example, I have noted media speculation recently that one of your projects – Project mBridge – could provide the basis for a BRICS initiative to circumvent sanctions. Is that plausible? Can you comment on this?
In the Innovation Hub we try to be a catalyst for innovation. The way it works is that we talk with the community of central banks, identify their needs and then develop projects. And we do them in partnership with central banks.
MBridge has been a project we have been involved with for four years. We have several central bank partners and many, many observers. I think the project has been a big success. It’s a payment system where through wholesale CBDCs you could facilitate tremendously cross-border transactions.
I would say that the project has been so successful that we can declare that we have graduated out. The BIS is leaving that project, not because it was a failure and not because of political considerations but instead because we have been involved for four years and it is at a level where the partners can carry it on by themselves. That has happened already with other projects.
At the same time, I have to say that mBridge is not mature enough to start operating; it is many years away from that.
With respect to political aspects, the noise out there, mBridge is not the “BRICs bridge” – I have to say that categorically. mBridge was not created to cater to the needs of the BRICs. It was put together to satisfy broad central bank necessities.
We at the BIS – I think this is an opportunity to set record straight – we always try to be good global citizen. And the BIS does not operate with any countries, nor can its products be used by any countries that are subject to sanctions. This will continue to be the case. And all central bank members are in this mindset that we need to be observant of sanctions and whatever products we put together should not be a conduit to violate sanctions.
WASHINGTON, DC – Fannie Mae (FNMA/OTCQB) today reported its third quarter 2024 financial results and filed its Third Quarter 2024 Form 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing provides condensed consolidated financial statements for the quarter ended September 30, 2024. The following documents are now available on Fannie Mae’s website at www.fanniemae.com.
Fannie Mae has scheduled a conference call to discuss the company’s results today at 8:00 a.m., ET. Participants may join the conference call in listen-only mode via the webcast link below.
Listen-only webcast: https://event.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1691512&tp_key=ce5c202816 Click on the link above to attend the presentation from your laptop, tablet, or mobile device. Audio will stream through your selected device. If you have difficulty accessing the webcast, please click the “Listen by Phone” button on the webcast player and dial the number provided.
Source: United States of America – Department of State (video statements)
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken holds a joint press availability with Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Republic of Korea Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Tae-yul, and Republic of Korea Minister of Defense Kim Yong-hyun at the Department of State, on October 31, 2024.
———-
Under the leadership of the President and Secretary of State, the U.S. Department of State leads America’s foreign policy through diplomacy, advocacy, and assistance by advancing the interests of the American people, their safety and economic prosperity. On behalf of the American people we promote and demonstrate democratic values and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world.
The Secretary of State, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, is the President’s chief foreign affairs adviser. The Secretary carries out the President’s foreign policies through the State Department, which includes the Foreign Service, Civil Service and U.S. Agency for International Development.
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The Army Mission – our purpose – remains constant: To deploy, fight and win our nation’s wars by providing ready, prompt & sustained land dominance by Army forces across the full spectrum of conflict as part of the joint force.
Interested in joining the U.S. Army?
Visit: spr.ly/6001igl5L
Connect with the U.S. Army online:
Web: https://www.army.mil
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
3rd phase of 136th Canton Fair opens in S China
Updated: October 31, 2024 19:58Xinhua
A merchant shops for bedding products at the 136th China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, Oct. 31, 2024. The third phase of the 136th China Import and Export Fair, popularly known as the Canton Fair, opened in Guangzhou on Thursday. [Photo/Xinhua]A merchant selects diapers at the 136th China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, Oct. 31, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]A merchant shops for clothes at the 136th China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, Oct. 31, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]A merchant selects sanitary products at the 136th China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, Oct. 31, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]A merchant selects aromatherapy products at the 136th China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, Oct. 31, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]People visit the 136th China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, Oct. 31, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]A merchant interacts with an exhibitor at the 136th China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, Oct. 31, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]A merchant tries a massage chair at the 136th China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, Oct. 31, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
BEIJING, Oct. 31 — The inaugural World Conference on Classics, slated for Nov. 6-8 in Beijing, will welcome participants from across the globe to engage in in-depth discussions on topics related to classical civilizations.
Themed “Classical Civilizations and the Modern World,” the event is co-organized by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Ministry of Education of China, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, the Ministry of Culture of Greece, and the Academy of Athens, according to the secretariat of the conference.
The event seeks to provide a platform for classical civilization researchers and specialists to trace the origins of human thought, distill wisdom from human history, and explore the traditions of human civilization from the perspective of classical studies.
It aims to lay a solid academic foundation for promoting exchange and mutual learning among civilizations, offer insight into addressing modern global issues, and provide new ideas that will drive human progress, thereby better practicing the Global Civilization Initiative and promoting the building of a human community with a shared future.
Representatives from various countries and international organizations, renowned experts and scholars, cultural figures, media professionals, think-tank experts and youth representatives around the world have been invited to the event.
During the conference, the participants will attend two high-level dialogues and multiple parallel forums.
Prior to the conference, foreign participants will tour the provinces of Shandong, Henan and Sichuan to explore the openness and inclusiveness of Chinese civilization.
Other activities revolving around the conference will include special exhibitions on themes such as archaeology and the origins of Chinese civilization, and on classical studies achievements, as well as classical-studies-themed activities held at colleges and universities.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
HOHHOT, Oct. 31 — A 1,000-kilovolt ultra-high voltage (UHV) alternating current (AC) project was officially put into operation on Thursday, connecting clean energy resources in the north of China with economically dynamic regions such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.
The Zhangbei-Shengli 1,000-kilovolt UHV AC project is expected to transmit over 70 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity — an amount sufficient to power 19 million households for a year — annually from Xilin Gol League in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Zhangjiakou in Hebei Province to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Shandong and Jiangsu provinces, and other regions.
The project applies the UHV technology for the first time to connect a clean energy base in the north of Hebei with wind farms in Xilin Gol League, increasing the proportion of new energy in UHV transmission channels and boosting the consumption of green electricity on the receiving end of the grid, thereby promoting the transition to clean and low-carbon energy.
It also addresses the rising demand for electricity in the receiving regions more effectively.
China is at the technological forefront in new energy power generation, UHV power transmission, flexible direct current transmission and digitization of electricity systems, according to a report issued earlier this year by the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization, a non-profit international organization headquartered in Beijing.
Personal income increased $71.6 billion (0.3 percent at a monthly rate) in September. Disposable personal income (DPI)-personal income less personal current taxes-increased $57.4 billion (0.3 percent). Personal outlays-the sum of personal consumption expenditures (PCE), personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments-increased $106.3 billion (0.5 percent) and consumer spending increased $105.8 billion (0.5 percent). Personal saving was $1.00 trillion and the personal saving rate-personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income-was 4.6 percent in September. Full Text
Source: US Department of Health and Human Services – 2
Media Advisory
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Adolescents see a greater remission of type 2 diabetes compared to adults.
What
Young people with severe obesity who underwent weight-loss surgery at age 19 or younger continued to see sustained weight loss and resolution of common obesity-related comorbidities 10 years later, according to results from a large clinical study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Study participants with an average age of 17 underwent gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy weight-loss surgery. After 10 years, participants sustained an average of 20% reduction in body mass index (BMI), 55% reduction of type 2 diabetes, 57% reduction of hypertension, and 54% reduction of abnormal cholesterol. Both gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy had similar results.
The 55% reduction in type 2 diabetes was much higher than the rates observed in adults after weight-loss surgery (18% at seven years and 12.7% at 12 years) in a recently published NIH-funded study.
Type 2 diabetes tends to progress more rapidly when it occurs in young people, and these findings demonstrate the greater health benefits and durability of bariatric surgery in youth than would be expected in similarly treated adults.
The study, known as Teen Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery (Teen LABS), was supported by NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) through grants DK072493, DK072493, DK095710 and NIH’s National Center for Research Resources and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program grants TR000077 and TR000114.
Data related to these findings are available for request at the NIDDK Central Repository.
Who
Voula Osganian, M.D., a pediatric clinical obesity program director at NIDDK is available to comment on this research.
Reference
Ryder, Justin et al., Ten-year Outcomes Following Adolescent Bariatric Surgery, [2024] New England Journal of Medicine. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc2404054
The NIDDK, part of the NIH, conducts and supports research on diabetes and other endocrine and metabolic diseases; digestive diseases, nutrition and obesity; and kidney, urologic and hematologic diseases. Spanning the full spectrum of medicine and afflicting people of all ages and ethnic groups, these diseases encompass some of the most common, severe and disabling conditions affecting Americans. For more information about the NIDDK and its programs, see https://www.niddk.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
The time has come: in a few days, Lufthansa Allegris First Class, the flagship of the new cabin on long-haul routes, will take off on a scheduled flight for the first time. The first destinations will be Bangalore on November 9 and Mumbai (both in India) a little later, on November 15, which will then be served alternately with the new First Class. Two individual suites and the globally unique Suite Plus in the A350-900 will then take off on a scheduled flight for the first time. After a technical introduction phase, Lufthansa will initially present the new, innovative product to its most loyal guests by invitation. As soon as more aircraft with the new First Class are part of the fleet, targeted upgrades by passengers and later targeted bookings will be possible step by step.
The furnishings in the First Class Suite set new standards: guests can heat or cool their almost one-meter-wide seats in the suite according to their personal needs. The separate suites with ceiling-high walls and lockable door, large table and wide seat, a huge screen and wireless over-ear headphones, set new standards in comfort and individuality in the highest class. A personal wardrobe in the suite provides ample storage space so that travelers can change comfortably and have all their personal items to hand. Individual lamps allow travelers to create their very own feel-good atmosphere. The Suite Plus also combines maximum comfort for individual guests with the unique option of traveling together with a travel partner in a suite.
Lufthansa receives APEX Innovation Award for research into VR headsets in in-flight entertainment
Lufthansa has received the award for the world’s best in-flight entertainment innovation 2024 from the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX). In collaboration with Meta and MSM.Digital, the airline has launched a ground-breaking in-flight entertainment initiative and is currently testing mixed reality technologies for guests. On all flights equipped with Allegris, guests in the Business Class Suite now have the opportunity to use the headsets and give feedback on what they particularly enjoyed. With the latest generation of state-of-the-art VR headsets, Lufthansa is the only airline in the world to exclusively offer content such as captivating cinema-style movies, engaging VR 360-degree travel podcasts, interactive games and soothing relaxation exercises.
Source: United States of America – Department of State (video statements)
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Republic of Korea Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Tae-yul at the Department of State, on October 31, 2024.
———-
Under the leadership of the President and Secretary of State, the U.S. Department of State leads America’s foreign policy through diplomacy, advocacy, and assistance by advancing the interests of the American people, their safety and economic prosperity. On behalf of the American people we promote and demonstrate democratic values and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world.
The Secretary of State, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, is the President’s chief foreign affairs adviser. The Secretary carries out the President’s foreign policies through the State Department, which includes the Foreign Service, Civil Service and U.S. Agency for International Development.
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The European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) will begin to offer financial grants for the first time, with initial projects aiming to support some of the Agency’s activities including providing information to asylum seekers and strengthening its Situational Awareness work. In a pilot phase, the Agency will further develop its database of Asylum Case Law, with a call for proposals launching today.
The EUAA has launched its first call for proposals, as part of a pilot phase for a new EUAA grants programme, with an expected value of 2.8 million euros for 2024-2025. The grants programme is a direct result of the Agency’s strengthened mandate. Grants will be awarded in order to help the Agency to implement several activities that are critical to fulfilling its mandate to support Member States’ asylum and reception systems.
Over the next year, the Agency will prepare a series of calls for proposals that will provide funding to eligible organisations that can support it with several activities including:
Developing its collection of asylum case law: In its first call for proposals, launching today, the Agency aims to enhance the accessibility to, and collection of, jurisprudence relating to asylum – within the context of the Common European Asylum System.
Strengthening its information provision activities: The Agency is currently providing operational support in 11 EU countries; in several countries this includes providing information to applicants for international protection. At times, this involves Civil Society organisations and International Organisations, which may soon be able to benefit from EU funding under the EUAA grants programme.
Strengthening support to resettlement: The Agency will seek to strengthen its resettlement activities by creating new Resettlement and Support Facilities (RSFs). They will serve as important locations for coordinated work between the EUAA and representatives of EU+ countries’ resettlement and humanitarian admission programmes.
Enhancing the implementation of the European Asylum Curriculum: Comprised of 50 different training modules, a future grant will support national capacity to implement the EUAA’s European Asylum Curriculum, and foster greater convergence in Europe’s asylum and reception systems.
Background
Under Article 56(2) of the EUAA Regulation, the Agency is newly empowered to offer grants, to help it discharge its responsibilities. The Agency supports Member States in implementing their asylum and receptions systems by implementing the tasks set out in Article 2 of the same Regulation. To that end, the Agency will begin to offer grants, in line with the principles of the EU’s Financial Regulation.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
More than £3 billion has been set aside to mend crumbling wards and bring NHS technology into the 21st century.
Concrete steps to fix the foundations and rebuild Britain’s public services to make them fit for generations to come.
More than £2 billion to upgrade NHS technology and £1 billion to deal with massive NHS maintenance backlog.
NHS will deliver 2% productivity growth in new commitment.
New technology and functioning hospitals will be the first priority in the Government’s ambition to modernise the NHS and make it fit for the future.
More than £3 billion has been set aside to mend the crumbling wards and bring healthcare tech into the 21st century – to give patients the right care, in the right location, with the right technology.
It’s only with this new technology and functioning hospitals that the NHS can begin to reform in earnest – and create a health service that can thrive for generations to come.
This is part of the Chancellor’s record-breaking £22.6 billion increase in day-to-day spending and £3.1 billion capital boost for the Department for Health and Social Care from 2023/24 to 2025/26, which will reduce waiting times and rebuild the NHS.
Paired with reforms set out in the Government’s 10-Year Health Plan, this overdue injection of capital spending will fix the foundations and make the delivery of healthcare more efficient for generations to come. It will move us from hospital to community, analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention.
It comes alongside a commitment to deliver 2% productivity growth to the nation’s healthcare system.
Prime Minister, Rt Hon Keir Starmer, said:
We’re fixing the foundations to deliver change – by fixing the NHS and rebuilding Britain, while ensuring working people don’t face higher taxes in their payslips.
Yesterday’s budget marks a huge step towards that – setting us on the path to make our public services fit for the future.
This new settlement follows a shocking report by Lord Darzi earlier this year, which laid bare the chronic underinvestment in both facilities and technology that has been stunting the NHS.
He concluded the last decade was a “missed opportunity” to prepare the NHS for the future and embrace the technologies that would enable a shift in the model from ‘diagnose and treat’ to ‘predict and prevent’— something he warned about 15 years ago.
Yesterday’s budget puts an end to that – with £2 billion set aside to tilt the NHS towards technology and £1 billion to deal with the bulging backlog of maintenance work that has left hospitals on their knees.
The investment of more than £2 billion will transform the way NHS staff work as the service looks to harness new technologies to free up their time so they can focus on the care and treatment of patients.
The £1 billion will tackle critical repairs and the NHS maintenance backlog which has built up since 2010; something highlighted by Lord Darzi, which has meant the NHS has been left in a ‘critical condition’.
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rt Hon Rachel Reeves, said:
This was a Budget to fix the foundations and deliver change – starting by fixing the NHS.
It’s a service that matters to so many of us and this is us delivering on our promise of change.
Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, said:
We’re on a mission to fix our broken NHS by driving fundamental reform, to bring our analogue health service into the digital age. We will put the latest kit in the hands of NHS staff and use modern technology to give patients real control over their own healthcare.
Through our 10-Year Health Plan we will cut waiting lists, reduce waiting times and get the health service delivering for patients and staff once again.
Dr Vin Diwakar, NHS National Director for Transformation, said:
The NHS has already made £2 billion of efficiency savings so far this financial year, and the Chancellor’s confirmation of funding for next year will allow us to continue to roll out technology to improve productivity and switch services from analogue to digital.
Whether it is critical estates maintenance, cyber security or digitising patient records, the NHS is committed to working with the Government in the coming months to fix the foundations of the health service, while also transforming for the future.
Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region
PIF and Hong Kong Monetary Authority sign memorandum of understanding for investment fund at FII8 (with photo) PIF and Hong Kong Monetary Authority sign memorandum of understanding for investment fund at FII8 (with photo) ******************************************************************************************
The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority:
Discussions to anchor a joint US$1 billion fund to invest in companies with Hong Kong nexus expanding to Saudi Arabia to drive localisation of key industries, including manufacturing, renewables, fintech and healthcare Collaboration marks significant milestone aligning with Saudi Vision 2030 and with Hong Kong’s position as one of the world’s leading financial hubs
PIF and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) today (October 31) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to work towards jointly anchoring a new investment fund, with a target size of US$1 billion. The MoU was signed at the 8th edition of the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh. Under the MoU, the fund would explore investment in manufacturing, renewables, fintech and healthcare, supporting the localisation in Saudi Arabia of companies connected to Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. It would enable the creation of highly skilled local jobs and drive economic growth through fostering regional champions in the target sectors. It would reinforce Hong Kong’s position as one of the world’s leading financial hubs, leveraging its diverse talent pool, efficient financial infrastructure and deep liquidity. The signing of this MoU is a new milestone and underlines the economic ties between two leading institutions – PIF and HKMA. The proposed new fund aligns with PIF’s strategy of economic diversification and sustainability. This partnership has the potential to drive shared prosperity by investing in industries that will shape future economies, combining HKMA’s long-term investment expertise with PIF’s strategy for the target sectors. The new fund would promote foreign direct investments via Hong Kong, providing a platform for companies to internationalise their businesses and have access to attractive investment opportunities in Saudi Arabia.
Ends/Thursday, October 31, 2024Issued at HKT 20:45
The following is a guest post byMary-Claire Sarafianos,a former intern with the Digital Resources Division of theLaw Library of Congress.She isa second-year Ph.D. student in English at theUniversity of Missouri.She studies silence and structure, both as problems in archives and as features of 19th-century American women’s writing.
In the village of Nyack, New York, an 18-room Victorian estate perches on the edge of the road, looming big and blue above the Hudson River. Local legend proclaimed that the house was haunted. Many a ghost story had been told about this home–a Navy lieutenant from the American Revolution lurking around the basement, an invisible force shaking beds, and a spirit floating and rocking in the middle of the living room. The house and the various spectral presences within it were well-known by the local people of Nyack, but these stories have gone beyond local legend–unlike any other house in American history, 1 La Veta Place was declared, as a matter of law, haunted.
But before the house’s ghosts became a matter of legal record, 1 La Veta Place was considered haunted by locals. The house was even “included in a five-home walking tour of Nyack and described in a November 27th newspaper article as ‘a riverfront Victorian (with ghost).’” (Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254, 256 (N.Y. App. Div. 1991.) During her time living at 1 La Veta Place, Helen Ackley not only spoke publicly about the ghosts, she wrote about them on both a local and national level. Ackley wrote a story detailing her house’s various phantasmal residents in a local newspaper in 1982, in addition to an article she wrote for Reader’s Digest in 1977 that described the ghosts and their relationship to the human inhabitants of the home. (Stambovsky at 256.) Apparently, the ghosts at 1 La Veta Place were an odd but friendly group of phantoms, but when the house went up for sale, these ghost stories were confronted with the looming figure of the law, leading to the case of Stambovsky v. Ackley, or what is colloquially known as “The Ghostbuster Ruling.”
When Ackley put the home up for sale, she hired Ellis Realty, who would become her co-defendant in the ensuing legal trouble. Jeffrey Stambovsky, a New York City resident who was unfamiliar with the Nyack folklore and the reputation of the Ackley home, made an offer on the home for $650,000. (Stambovsky at 256.) But some time between making the down payment and closing on the house, Stambovsky discovered the reputation of 1 La Veta Place. According to the majority opinion, when Stambovsky discovered that he was purchasing an allegedly haunted house, he “sought to rescind the $650,000 contract of sale and obtain return of his $32,500 down payment without resort to litigation.” (Stambovsky at 261.) When this did not work, Stambovsky brought his complaint to court and requested not only to cancel the contract to purchase the home but also to request damages for fraudulent misrepresentation by Ackley and her real estate broker, Ellis Realty. (Stambovsky at 256.) And just like that, the house became less of a local legend and more of a legal entanglement.
[“Spirit” photograph, supposedly taken during a seance, actually a double exposure or composite of superimposed cut-outs, showing woman with portraits of men and women around her head]. Fallis, S. W. 1901. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsca.40857/.
Stambovsky’s initial complaint was dismissed by the New York County Supreme Court. The court’s decision was influenced by the fact that New York followed the common law doctrine of caveat emptor, meaning “let the buyer beware” in Latin. The doctrine of caveat emptor “places the burden on buyers to reasonably examine property before making a purchase. A buyer who fails to meet this burden is unable to recover for defects in the product that would have been discovered had this burden been met.” Under this doctrine, sellers are not obligated to disclose information to potential buyers and, according to this doctrine, the supposed hauntings of the Ackley home were Stambovsky’s burden to uncover before making an offer on the house. Consequently, the New York County Supreme Court concluded that Stambovsky would neither receive his down payment nor damages, as there was no fraudulent misrepresentation at play. (Stambovsky at 256.) However, Stambovsky persisted and appealed the court’s decision.
The appeals court found that caveat emptor did not apply to Stambovsky’s case. As the majority opinion states, “[a]pplying the strict rule of caveat emptor to a contract involving a house possessed by poltergeists conjures up visions of a psychic or medium routinely accompanying the structural engineer and Terminix man on an inspection of every home subject to a contract of sale.” (Stambovsky at 257.) The appeals court allowed Stambovsky to seek rescission of the contract for sale of the home. (Stambovsky at 260-261.) What the case affirms is not that ghosts exist in a legal sense, but that if the house can be considered haunted enough to merit being a stop on a tour of haunted housesand be the subject of an article in Reader’s Digest, then that spooky reputation must be disclosed to potential buyers.
This verdict presents both sellers and buyers of real estate with complicated questions about the reputations and histories of property and, though not everyone believes in ghosts, houses are often haunted by the crimes, tragedies, and misfortunes that have happened within their walls. Such houses are considered stigmatized properties, which are properties that have been “psychologically impacted by an event which occurred, or was suspected to have occurred, on the property, such an event being one that has no physical impact of any kind.” Whether there is a reputation for ghosts, crime, or misfortune, the public perception of stigmatized property can make it difficult to sell, regardless of the quality of the land or structure. In the case of Stambovsky v. Ackley, the stigmatized nature of the property could actually attract buyers; 1 La Veta Place drew the attention of The Amazing Kreskin, a mentalist who wanted to buy the house, despite its haunted reputation.
The ghost. Melander & Bro. 1874. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/stereo.1s42592/?loclr=bloglaw.
The legal responsibilities of both sellers and buyers of stigmatized property vary from state to state. In New York today, deaths, crimes, or stigmatizing features of a property are not required to be disclosed to a seller, but the buyer may inquire as to any of these concerns and the seller may “choose whether or not to respond to the inquiry.” Pennsylvania law has upheld similar requirements, particularly in the case of Milliken v. Jacono, which concluded that “psychological damage to a property cannot be considered a material defect in the property which must be revealed by the seller to the buyer.” (Milliken v. Jacono, 60 A.3d 133, 138 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2012).) While many states follow New York and Pennsylvania, other states require that sellers disclose to buyers whether certain violent crimes were committed on a property. In Alaska, if a licensee knows that a murder or suicide occurred on the property within the last year, they are obligated to disclose this information to the buyer before an offer is made or accepted. In South Dakota, a similar law is in place that requires a property disclosure statement that includes the question: “Since you have owned the property, are you aware of a human death by homicide or suicide occurring on the property?”
Some states have no requirements or laws on the books that indicate whether a property’s tragic or torrid history needs to be disclosed to the buyer, but certainly no other states have put their caveat emptor doctrines to the test against ghosts in the way that New York has. In the interest of ending on a slightly more humorous note, I turn again to the majority opinion of Stambovsky v. Ackley, which brought a level of humor to the conclusions of the case that have earned it the nickname “The Ghostbusters Ruling.” The majority opinion references the movie Ghostbusters by name and uses even more ghostly puns than I have employed throughout this blog post. (Stambovsky at 257.) The humor of the majority opinion even weaves its way into the logic of the case where the judge states that “if the language of the contract is to be construed as broadly as defendant urges to encompass the presence of poltergeists in the house, it cannot be said that she has delivered the premises ‘vacant’ in accordance with her obligation under the provisions of the contract rider.” (Stambovsky at 260.) In keeping with the humor of the court opinion, this case remains a spot of humor in contract law curricula across the country. Stambovsky v. Ackley and cases like it continue to spark conversation and legislation around caveat emptor and stigmatized property.
If you are interested in learning about how English law handles the disclosure of hauntings, see the previous In Custodia Legis post, “
TRENTON – The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) today announced the approval of Triennium 2 (T2) energy efficiency programs proposed by the state’s seven electric and gas utilities. In the process of supporting building decarbonization and energy conservation, these programs will prioritize low-income customers who shoulder disproportionately high energy burdens.
“Today’s approval of the Triennium 2 energy efficiency programs marks a major milestone in our progress toward achieving the goals set out in Governor Murphy’s Energy Master Plan, which is paving the way for a healthier, more sustainable Garden State,” said NJBPU President Christine Guhl-Sadovy. “By bolstering New Jersey’s ongoing building decarbonization efforts and the NJBPU’s robust array of energy efficiency initiatives, the T2 programs will further boost long-term cost and energy savings for New Jersey customers.”
“These ambitious programs are the largest single step by New Jersey to achieve Governor Murphy’s ambitious goal in EO 316 to electrify 400,000 residential and 20,000 commercial units by 2030,” said Eric Miller, Executive Director of the Office of Climate Action and the Green Economy. “The steps taken today by the BPU will grow our clean energy workforce, lower bills for participating customers, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Triennium 2 is the second cycle of the State’s multi-year utility-run energy efficiency programs. Established by the Clean Energy Act of 2018, natural gas utilities must achieve energy savings of 0.75% and electric utilities must achieve energy savings of 2% of the average annual usage in the prior three years within five years of implementation of their energy efficiency programs.
To date, it is estimated that Triennium 1 (T1) programs have disbursed $1.25 billion in financial incentives to ratepayers statewide and reduced annual electricity usage by 3 million megawatt hours, annual natural gas usage by 8.5 million MMBtu, and reduced customers’ utility bills by $600 million. T1 resulted in 1.4 million metric tons of annual greenhouse gas emission reductions, which is equivalent to approximately 300,000 cars removed from the road per year.
The T1 portfolio was expanded in T2 to address two important challenges for NJ: building decarbonization and demand response. The building decarbonization start-up programs incentivize adoption of key measures such as electric heat pumps and water heaters to reduce building emissions from fossil fuels. Demand response programs encourage homeowners and businesses to reduce consumption of energy at peak times through smart thermostats, controls, and price signals. Collectively, over $3.75 billion has been budgeted for the programs and will be implemented over a 30-month period from January 1, 2025 through June 30, 2027. This investment will help the State achieve Governor Murphy’s goals outlined in Executive Order 316 and are anticipated to reduce annual electricity usage by 2.3 million megawatt hours, annual natural gas usage by 8.9 million MMBtu, and annual greenhouse gas emissions by 1.5 million metric tons.
To promote energy equity, the Income-Qualified Program will have more capacity compared to T1 to provide comprehensive home energy assessments and offer health and safety, weatherization, HVAC, and other energy efficiency upgrades at no cost to eligible customers. More broadly, programs across the utilities’ portfolios will continue to include enhanced incentives and more favorable financing terms for income-eligible customers.
One notable addition in T2 is the standardization of the Direct Install model, including a Public Sector Direct Install program pathway, which will help support partners in labor in growing a local workforce that represents the diverse fabric of our state. Approximately 37,000 people work in the clean buildings sector, and T2 will strengthen the pathway for diverse workers and businesses to continue to build the clean energy economy.
For more information about State and utility-led efficiency programs, please visit: https://www.njcleanenergy.com/EEP
About New Jersey’s Clean Energy Program (NJCEP) NJCEP, established on January 22, 2003, in accordance with the Electric Discount and Energy Competition Act (EDECA), provides financial and other incentives to the State’s residential customers, businesses and schools that install high-efficiency or renewable energy technologies, thereby reducing energy usage, lowering customers’ energy bills and reducing environmental impacts. The program is authorized and overseen by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU), and its website is www.NJCleanEnergy.com.
About the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) NJBPU is a state agency and regulatory authority mandated to ensure safe, adequate and proper utility services at reasonable rates for New Jersey customers. Critical services regulated by NJBPU include natural gas, electricity, water, wastewater, telecommunications and cable television. The Board has general oversight and responsibility for monitoring utility service, responding to consumer complaints, and investigating utility accidents. To find out more about NJBPU, visit our website at www.nj.gov/bpu.
Wichita Falls, Texas is home to the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program, where aspiring aviators from 14 NATO member countries see if they have what it takes to fly with the Alliance’s best.
The home of a transatlantic training mission
Wichita Falls doesn’t seem like a place that should mean anything to a European fighter pilot. But if you were to ask Jade, a lieutenant in the Belgian Air Force, if she’s ever heard of the place, she might give you a knowing smirk.
It’s where she learned to fly.
The sky over Sheppard Air Force Base thundered as sleek jets knifed through the air, breaking left over the runway in preparation for landing. Home of the US Air Force’s 80th Flying Training Wing, Sheppard owns the busiest airspace in the United States. Planes are constantly landing, taking off or queueing on the long taxiways. A bumper sticker on the back of one car reads: “I Heart Jet Noise.”
The Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program (ENJJPT) has been turning out NATO fighter pilots since 1981, when seven Allies founded the school at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls. Most joint NATO initiatives are based in Europe (where 30 of the 32 NATO member countries are located), but Sheppard was chosen as the ideal location for ENJJPT because of its existing training facilities, year-round good flying weather and the wide-open Texan skies. Today, more than 40 years later, 14 national flags fly outside the squat, brick building that houses ENJJPT’s headquarters, representing the 14 participating NATO Allies: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Türkiye, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Inside, Italian pilots saunter through the maze-like corridors, passing groups of Romanians, Norwegians, Spaniards and Danes. In the gear room, Greek instructors put on their flight vests and G-Suits (trousers lined with inflatable air pockets that keep pilots conscious during high-speed turns) and wait for their students. On their way out, they pass groups of Canadian and Turkish students coming back from training sorties, their hair matted with sweat, their faces flushed with victory: it’s another flight down, another step closer to their wings.
Ask one of the European student aviators how they like living in the Lone Star State, and they’ll twist their mouth into a curious smile and say something like: “I like it.” Which might be a polite way of saying: I’m from a small village in Germany and I’ve never heard someone say “yeehaw” before.
Fixin’ to fly – A rigorous training schedule
Not that the students get many chances to sample the local culture. From the moment they arrive at Sheppard and drop their suitcases, their schedules are packed. First stop is “ground school”, where students learn the fundamental science of flight. Then students get fitted for helmets, harnesses and G-suits and climb into their first aircraft, the T-6 Texan II.
With the instructors watching from the backseat, this is where the student aviators take the stick for the first time. They learn how to take off, fly in formation and land, keeping the aircraft on speed and on course. It’s a time of firsts, each with its own tradition: a student’s first flight is called a “Dollar Ride” because students are expected to give their instructors a Silver Dollar coin. After a student’s first solo flight, their classmates haul them off to a nearby pool of water for a well-deserved bath.
From here, some students leave Wichita Falls to learn how to fly multi-engine transport aircraft like the C-130 Hercules. Those destined for fighter jets, however, must conquer the T-38 Talon.
Save a horse, ride a jet plane – training with the Talon
The Talon is skinny as a scalpel, with wings so thin they seem to disappear when viewed head-on. Its long snout slopes up to a bubble canopy, which encloses two ejection seats. It looks fast, and it is; with afterburners lit, it can punch through the sound barrier and send a sonic boom smashing across the north Texas Plains. One Dutch Major, callsign “Homer”, compares it to a ’66 Mustang sports car – fitting, he notes, because the Talon first entered service in the 1960s.
The jet will be replaced in the coming years, but in the meantime it’s still a worthy teacher. Its hydraulic flight controls demand that students pay attention, feeling the jet through the stick and continuously “trimming out” to ensure balanced flight. Its stubby wings are built for maximum speed, not maximum stability, and if the inattentive student bleeds too much speed in a turn, it will fall out of the sky – or, as the instructors prosaically put it, “depart controlled flight.”
When Lieutenant Jade first took off in a Talon, she was used to the T-6 Texan II, and she wasn’t ready for the raw power pumped out by the jet’s two turbojet engines. She had to stand on the brakes to keep the aircraft static as she pushed the throttle to “mil” – full military power. She felt the aircraft tremor as the afterburners lit. When she released the brakes, the jet leapt forward.
“For me, that day was like… I knew I was on the right track,” she said.
Getting back in the saddle
The Talon curriculum is the hardest part of ENJJPT. When students aren’t flying, they’re studying. When they aren’t studying, they’re in the simulator, practising skills like flying in close formation, or the thrill of high-speed, low-level flight. And when they’re not in the simulator, they’re sleeping.
“Sometimes it’s a bit too fast, and I have to catch up,” Jade said. “That’s the biggest struggle I’ve had so far. That gets me feeling down about it, sometimes. But then it’s even more rewarding when you’re able to step up and strive again.”
The students know that success is not guaranteed. Plenty of their peers buckle under the stress and leave the Program to serve out their military commitments elsewhere in their country’s armed forces. But for most, failure is not an option. Washing out would mean turning their back on something that’s called to them all their life.
“Everyone wishes to have an impact on the world,” Jade said. “That’s how I think I can make the biggest impact.”
Earning their wings
If a student proves that they can master the demands of high-speed flight in the Talon, they head towards “Drop Night” – the ceremony where they find out which jet they’re going to fly. For the US Air Force, which operates a variety of fighter, bomber and transport aircraft, the suspense is real. When a student is assigned to their first-pick aircraft, some literally leap with joy and relief.
For Jade, there was little suspense – the Belgian Air Force primarily flies one tactical jet, the F-16 Fighting Falcon multirole fighter, although Belgium is now replacing its F-16 fleet with F-35 Lightning II fifth-generation stealth fighters – but the glee in having passed a demanding curriculum was undiluted. When she “dropped” the F-16, she leapt into the air, pumping her fists before being carried away by her cheering classmates.
Jade has since left Sheppard to learn how to fly the F-16. Eventually, perhaps, she’ll be deployed to eastern Europe, where NATO Allies have significantly increased the number of fighters on standby to respond to airborne threats, part of the NATO Air Policing mission on the Alliance’s eastern flank. Until then, the next generation of aspiring military aviators has already begun training at Sheppard, joining a decades-long tradition of taking to the skies together.
