A drone and speedboat attack off Yemen killed four seafarers on a Liberian-flagged, Greek-operated bulk carrier, an official with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday, the second incident in a day, following months of calm.
Traffic in the Red Sea, a key waterway for oil and commodities, has dropped since Yemen’s Houthi militia aligned with Iran began targeting ships in 2023 in what it called solidarity with Palestinians under assault in Israel’s war in Gaza.
The deaths on the Eternity C, the first involving shipping in the Red Sea since June 2024, take to eight the total of seafarers killed in the Red Sea attacks.
One more injured crew died on board after the attack, a source with knowledge of the matter said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Houthis have not commented on the Eternity C, but hours earlier claimed responsibility for a strike on another Liberia-flagged, Greek-operated bulk carrier, the MV Magic Seas, off southwest Yemen on Sunday, saying the vessel sank.
“After several months of calm, the resumption of deplorable attacks in the Red Sea constitutes a renewed violation of international law and freedom of navigation,” IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said on Tuesday.
The U.S. State Department condemned the “unprovoked Houthi terror attack on the civilian cargo vessels MV Magic Seas and MV Eternity C”, as demonstrating the threats the Houthis posed to freedom of navigation and regional security.
Washington “will continue to take necessary action to protect freedom of navigation and commercial shipping,” it added in a statement.
The Eternity C’s operator, Cosmoship Management, was not immediately available to comment.
Eternity C, with 21 Philippine nationals and a Russian making up a crew of 22, was adrift and listing after the attack with sea drones and rocket-propelled grenades fired from manned speed boats, maritime security sources told Reuters.
Greece was in diplomatic talks with Saudi Arabia over the incident, sources said, as two maritime security firms, including Greece-based Diaplous, prepared to mount a rescue mission for the crew trapped on Eternity C.
An official with Aspides, the European Union’s mission assigned to help protect Red Sea shipping, also said at least two other crew were injured. Earlier, Liberia’s shipping delegation told a U.N. meeting that two crew were killed.
The Houthis released a video they said depicted their attack on the Magic Seas, including the Mayday call, explosions, and the vessel’s ultimate submersion. Reuters could not independently verify the footage.
The vessel’s manager said the information about the sinking could not be verified.
But Joshua Hutchinson, managing director of maritime security firm Ambrey, told Reuters it had a response vessel in the area and confirmed the Magic Seas had gone down.
All crew on the Magic Seas were rescued by a passing merchant vessel and arrived safely in Djibouti on Monday, Djibouti authorities said.
Since November 2023, the Houthis have disrupted commerce by launching hundreds of drones and missiles at vessels in the Red Sea, saying they were targeting ships linked to Israel.
While the Houthis struck a ceasefire with Washington in May, the militia has vowed to keep attacking ships it says are connected with Israel.
“Just as Liberia was processing the shock and grief of the attack against Magic Seas, we received a report that Eternity C again has been attacked … causing the death of two seafarers,” Liberia’s delegation told a session of the International Maritime Organization.
‘ELEVATED RISKS’
Both vessels attacked were part of commercial fleets whose sister vessels have called at Israeli ports over the past year.
“The pause in Houthi activity did not necessarily indicate a change in underlying intent,” said Ellie Shafik, head of intelligence with the Britain-based maritime risk management company Vanguard Tech.
“As long as the conflict in Gaza persists, vessels with affiliations, both perceived and actual, will continue to face elevated risks.”
The Philippines has urged its seafarers, who form one of the world’s largest groups of merchant mariners, to exercise their right to refuse to sail in “high-risk, war-like” areas, including the Red Sea after the latest strikes, its department of migrant workers said.
Shipping traffic through the region has shrunk about half from normal levels since the first Houthi attacks in 2023, said Jakob Larsen, chief safety and security officer with shipping association BIMCO.
“This reduction in traffic has persisted due to the ongoing unpredictability of the security situation,” Larsen said. “As such, BIMCO does not anticipate the recent attacks will significantly alter current shipping patterns.”
Monday’s attack on Eternity C, 50 nautical miles southwest of Yemen’s port of Hodeidah, was the second on merchant vessels in the region since November 2024, an official at Aspides said.
On Monday, Israel’s military said it had struck Houthi targets at three Yemeni ports and a power plant, in its first attack on Yemen in a month.
The Houthis say their attacks are an act of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza where Israel’s military assault since late 2023 has killed more than 57,000 people, Gaza authorities say.
The Israeli assault has unleashed a hunger crisis, internally displaced the entire population of Gaza and spurred accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court.
Israel denies the accusations.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show.
The death toll from the July Fourth flash flood that ravaged a swath of central Texas Hill Country rose on Tuesday to at least 109, many of them children, as search teams pressed on through mounds of mud-encrusted debris looking for scores of people still missing.
According to figures released by Governor Gregg Abbott, authorities were seeking more than 180 people whose fate remained unknown four days after one of the deadliest U.S. flood events in decades.
The bulk of fatalities and the search for additional victims were concentrated in Kerr County and the county seat of Kerrville, a town of 25,000 residents transformed into a disaster zone when torrential rains struck the region early last Friday, flooding the Guadalupe River basin.
The bodies of 94 flood victims, about a third of them children, have been recovered in Kerr County alone as of Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said at a late-afternoon news conference after touring the area by air.
The Kerr County dead include 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe near the town of Hunt. The camp director also perished.
Five girls and a camp counselor were still unaccounted for on Tuesday, Abbott said, along with another child not associated with the camp.
As of Tuesday, 15 other flood-related fatalities had been confirmed across a swath of Texas Hill Country known as “flash flood alley,” the governor said, bringing the overall tally of lives lost to 109. Reports from local sheriffs’ and media have put the number of flood deaths outside Kerr County at 22.
But authorities have said they were bracing for the death toll to climb as flood waters recede and the search for more victims gains momentum.
Law enforcement agencies have compiled a list of 161 people “known to be missing” in Kerr County alone, Abbott said. The roster was checked against those who might be out of touch with loved ones or neighbors because they were away on vacation or out of town, according to the governor.
‘FIND EVERY SINGLE PERSON’
He said another 12 people were missing elsewhere across the flood zone as a whole, a sprawling area northwest of San Antonio.
“We need to find every single person who is missing. That’s job number one,” Abbott said.
On Tuesday, San Antonio-born country singer Pat Green disclosed on social media that his younger brother and sister-in-law and two of their children were among those “swept away in the Kerrville flood.”
Hindered by intermittent thunderstorms and showers, rescue teams from federal agencies, neighboring states and Mexico have joined local efforts to search for missing victims, though hopes of finding more survivors faded as time passed. The last victim found alive in Kerr County was last Friday.
“The work is extremely treacherous, time-consuming,” Lieutenant Colonel Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens said at a press conference. “It’s dirty work. The water is still there.”
A water-soaked family photo album was among the personal belongings found in flood debris by Sandi Gilmer, 46, a U.S. Army veteran and certified chaplain volunteering in the search operation along the Guadalupe at Hunt.
“I don’t know how many people in this album are alive or deceased,” she said, flipping through images of two toddlers and a gray-haired man. “I didn’t have the heart to step over it without picking it up and hoping to return it to a family member.”
MAKINGS OF A DISASTER
More than a foot of rain fell in the region in less than an hour before dawn last Friday, sending a wall of water cascading down the Guadalupe that killed dozens of people and left mangled piles of debris, uprooted trees and overturned vehicles.
Public officials have faced days of questions about whether they could have alerted people in flood-prone areas sooner.
The state emergency management agency warned last Thursday, on the eve of the disaster, that parts of central Texas faced a flash floods threat, based on National Weather Service forecasts.
But twice as much rain as predicted ended up falling over two branches of the Guadalupe just upstream of the fork where they converge, sending all of that water racing into the single river channel where it slices through Kerrville, City Manager Dalton Rice said.
Rice has said the outcome was unforeseen and unfolded in a matter of two hours, leaving too little time to conduct a precautionary mass evacuation without the risk of placing more people in harm’s way.
Scientists have said extreme flood events are growing more common as climate change creates warmer, wetter weather patterns in Texas and other parts of the country.
At an earlier news briefing on Tuesday, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha rebuffed questions about the county’s emergency operations and preparedness and declined to say who was ultimately in charge of monitoring weather alerts and issuing flood warnings or evacuation orders.
He said his office began receiving emergency-911 calls between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Friday, several hours after the local National Weather Service station issued a flash-flood alert. “We’re in the process of trying to put (together) a timeline,” Leitha said.
Abbott said a special session of the Texas legislature would convene later this month to investigate the emergency response and provide funding for disaster relief.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday Britain and France must work together to counter the world’s many destabilising threats and protect Europe from “excessive dependencies” on the United States and China.
Macron, in a rare address to both houses of the British parliament, celebrated the return of closer ties between the two countries as he became the first European leader to be invited for a British state visit since Brexit.
Having been greeted earlier by the British royal family, Macron set out to parliament where he said the two countries needed to come together to strengthen Europe, including on defence, immigration, climate, and trade.
“The United Kingdom and France must once again show the world that our alliance can make all the difference,” he said.
“The only way to overcome the challenges we have, the challenges of our times, will be to go together hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder.”
Listing the geopolitical threats the countries face, Macron argued they should also be wary of the “excessive dependencies of both the U.S. and China,” saying they needed to “de-risk our economies and our societies from this dual dependency.”
But he also set out the opportunities of a closer union, saying they should make it easier for students, researchers and artists to live in each other’s countries, and seek to work together on artificial intelligence and protect children online.
The speech symbolised the improvement in relations sought by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s centre-left Labour Party, as part of a broader reset of ties with European allies following the rancour over Britain’s departure from the European Union.
‘ENTENTE AMICALE’
Macron, who enjoys a strong personal relationship with King Charles, was earlier greeted by the royal family, including heir-to-the-throne Prince William and his wife Princess Catherine, before they travelled in horse-drawn carriages to Windsor Castle.
Charles used his speech at the evening’s opulent state banquet to christen a new era of friendly relations, upgrading the “entente cordiale” – an alliance dating from 1904 that ended centuries of military rivalries – to an “entente amicale.”
“As we dine here in this ancient place, redolent with our shared history, allow me to propose a toast to France and to our new entente. An entente not only past and present, but for the future – and no longer just cordiale, but now amicale,” he said.
The 76-year-old monarch, who is undergoing treatment for cancer, had a noticeably red right eye. A Buckingham Palace source said he had suffered a burst blood vessel that was unrelated to any other health condition.
Britain and France marked the three-day visit with an announcement that French nuclear energy utility EDF would invest £1.1 billion ($1.5 billion) in a nuclear power project in eastern England.
The two also said France would lend Britain the Bayeux Tapestry, allowing the 11th-century masterpiece to return for the first time in more than 900 years, in exchange for Britain loaning France Anglo-Saxon and Viking treasures.
The state visit comes 16 years after the late Queen Elizabeth hosted then-French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Despite tensions over post-Brexit ties and how to stop asylum seekers from crossing the Channel in small boats, Britain and France have been working closely to create a planned military force to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire with Russia.
Starmer is hoping that will help persuade Macron to take a different approach to stopping people smuggling, with London wanting to try out an asylum seekers’ returns deal. This would involve Britain deporting one asylum seeker to France in exchange for another with a legitimate case to be in Britain.
A record number of asylum seekers have arrived in Britain on small boats in the first six months of this year.
Starmer, whose party is trailing Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK party in the polls, is under pressure to find a solution.
France has previously refused to sign such an agreement, saying Britain should negotiate an arrangement with all EU countries.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Scientists comment on a heat-related death attribution study released by the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London.
Dr Akshay Deoras, Research Scientist at the University of Reading, said:
“Robust techniques used in this study leave no doubt that climate change is already a deadly force in Europe. Think of the Earth like an oven. In the past, heatwaves were like turning the oven up for a short burst. But with climate change, it is as if we have permanently set the oven to a higher temperature. It takes much less to reach dangerous levels of heat that can be fatal.
“The June 2025 heatwave across parts of Europe and the UK was not simply a natural disaster—it was supercharged by fossil fuel emissions, costing countless lives in major cities. Heatwaves are now more frequent and intense because our planet’s baseline temperature is higher due to greenhouse gas emissions. Without urgent action to reduce fossil fuel emissions, these extreme heat events will become even more common and severe, putting greater pressure on health systems, disrupting daily life, and threatening the safety of communities across Europe.”
Prof Richard Allan, Professor of Climate Science at the University of Reading, said:
“A warming climate sure as hell makes heatwaves worse. This forensic analysis combining observations, simulations and health data has shown how much more dangerous the recent European heatwave was across several cities with the higher levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
“Even without these rapid attribution studies, it is blindingly obvious from the multiple lines of evidence that when weather conditions generate heatwaves, they are more intense, meaning that moderate heat becomes dangerous and record heat becomes unprecedented. The other side of the coin is that as one part of the globe bakes and burns, another region can suffer intense rainfall and catastrophic flooding as a warmer, thirstier atmosphere saps the moisture from one region and winds blow this excess moisture into storm systems elsewhere.
“Communities need to adapt to an increasingly dangerous world through more resilient infrastructure and improved warning systems, yet it is only with rapid and massive cuts in greenhouse gases through collaboration across all sectors of society that worsening of weather extremes can be reined in.”
Dr Chloe Brimicombe, climate scientist at the Royal Meteorological Society, said:
“The study quickly shows how 65% of heatwave deaths in the last European heatwave can be linked to human-induced climate change in different cities. This is important because it shows that reducing emissions, which would stop an increase in heatwaves, could save lives.
“We are facing more heatwaves this summer across Europe, with many regions also moving towards drought which increases heat and risk of wildfires increase too. We could see more deaths in heatwaves this summer. Research like this is important and being used more in climate litigation cases where groups take countries and companies to court over climate change.
“It’s possible this study has even underestimated deaths slightly because it’s not taking into account the built environment and we know that often poorer parts of cities are more impacted because they are less “green” which means they heat up even more.
“The results are a model summary of an increase in deaths over populations of cities during a heat period. But in reality the realisation of the risk of cardiac arrest is different to someone drowning. And that is why it’s important to issue heat warnings to everyone because there are a lot of different ways someone dies during a heatwave.
“We need to talk about other heatwave impacts like pressure on transport, energy and food supplies. And we quickly need to think about how heat impacts economies as part of loss and damage. We also need to consider the rise in people attending hospital. We don’t really know enough about how heat impacts breastfeeding women and newborns, for example.
“Heatwaves silently pressure our society. For some individuals this is now from before birth to the day they die.”
‘Climate change tripled heat-related deaths in early summer European Heatwave’ by Ben Clarke et al. is an unpublished ‘rapid heat death attribution study’ led by scientists at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The embargo lifted at 5am UK time on Wednesday 9 July 2025.
Declared interests
Richard Allan: “No conflicting interests”
Chloe Brimicombe: “No disclosures”
For all other experts, no reply for our request for DOIs was received.
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
JERUSALEM, July 9 (Xinhua) — Five Israeli soldiers were killed and 14 others were wounded in an explosion in the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said Tuesday.
Five soldiers from the Netzah Yehuda Battalion of the Kfir Brigade were killed when an explosive device detonated in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, the military said in a statement.
During the evacuation, the rescuers came under fire from an ambush set by Palestinian militants, after which the wounded were evacuated to the hospital.
At least 6,964 Palestinians have been killed since Israel resumed its military offensive on Gaza on March 18, 2025, bringing the total death toll since October 2023 to 57,523, according to Gaza health authorities. –0–
Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
CAIRO, July 9 (Xinhua) — At least four people were killed and 27 others were injured in a major fire that broke out at the Telecom Egypt building in central Cairo on Monday, Egypt’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
The injured were taken to nearby hospitals, while several others were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation, the ministry said in a statement.
A fire that started on Monday afternoon at a key telecommunications facility owned by Telecom Egypt in Cairo’s Ramses district has caused temporary disruptions to telephone and internet service in parts of the capital and other regions.
Egypt’s Communications and Information Technology Minister Amr Talaat said on Tuesday that services would be gradually restored within 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry announced that flights at Cairo International Airport had resumed in full following overnight delays caused by communication disruptions.
“All affected flights have departed and operations at all Cairo airport terminals have returned to normal,” the ministry said in a statement.
A security source told the official MENA news agency that a preliminary investigation suggests the fire was caused by a short circuit, noting that forensic lab experts will collect evidence from the scene to determine the exact cause. –0–
Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Legislation amended in September 2021 requires non-government deductible gift recipients (DGRs) to be a registered charity from 14 December 2021.
Charity registration is an existing requirement for the majority of general DGR categories. The amendment extends this requirement to the remaining DGR categories, except for ancillary funds or DGRs that are specifically listed in tax law.
These changes form part of the Deductible gift recipient reform announced by the government in December 2017. They are designed to improve the consistency of regulation, governance and oversight of DGRs in order to uphold community confidence and trust in the sector.
DGRs that were already endorsed on 14 December 2021, as well as certain applicants with a DGR application pending, were eligible for transitional arrangements. Transitional arrangements provided additional time to meet the new requirements and included an:
automatic 12–month general transition period, giving DGRs until 14 December 2022 to become a registered charity
additional 3–year extension in limited circumstances – this application period has now closed.
Requirements for DGR endorsement
From 14 December 2021, a requirement for DGR endorsement is that a fund, authority or institution must be one of the following:
The requirement to be a registered charity or an Australian government agency does not apply for ancillary funds or DGRs specifically listed by name in tax law. See DGR categories.
Amended DGR categories
From 14 December 2021, the following updated general DGR categories require non-government organisations to be registered as a charity:
public fund for hospitals
public fund for public ambulance services
public fund for religious instruction in government schools
Roman Catholic public fund for religious instruction in government schools
school building fund
public fund for rural school hostel building
approved research institute
public fund for persons in necessitous circumstances
fire and emergency services fund
environmental organisation
cultural organisation.
Transitional arrangements
DGRs that were already endorsed on 14 December 2021, as well as certain applicants with a DGR application pending, were eligible for transitional arrangements. Transitional arrangements provided additional time to meet the new requirements and included an:
automatic 12–month general transition period, giving DGRs until 14 December 2022 to become a registered charity
additional 3–year extension in limited circumstances.
Three-year extension
Eligible organisations had to apply for a 3–year extension before 14 December 2022 if they needed more time.
Approved organisations have up to 14 December 2025 to meet the new eligibility requirements for DGR endorsement.
Applications for DGR endorsement made after 14 December 2021
Non-government organisations that apply for DGR endorsement after 14 December 2021 must register as a charity before we will consider their endorsement application.
Registering as a charity
Before applying to be registered as a charity, refer to the ACNC website for:
To apply for charityExternal Link registration, you need to log in to the ACNC Charity Portal and complete the application.
As part of your application, you will need to provide copies of your governing documents in either a Word or PDF file format. Image files may cause issues and may delay your application.
Other changes affecting your endorsement
If your organisation has changed its main purpose, activities or governing documents, you may no longer be entitled to DGR endorsement.
The form must be completed by an authorised contact listed on the account and must specify the date of cancellation. We may contact you to discuss the cancellation request.
We will cancel your organisation’s DGR endorsement and issue a written confirmation noting the cancellation date of effect.
After DGR cancellation, your organisation will:
no longer be entitled to receive tax-deductible donations or gifts
be required to remove tax-deductible status from your organisation’s website or other materials
need to arrange for surplus income or assets to be distributed to another eligible DGR.
Revocation of DGRs ineligible for endorsement
To maintain DGR endorsement, affected entities had to, before 14 December 2022, either:
register as a charity
be an Australian government agency
be operated by a registered charity or an Australian government agency.
If you didn’t register as a charity, or were not granted a 3–year extension, your DGR endorsement has been revoked. If revoked, your organisation is:
no longer entitled to receive tax-deductible donations or gifts
required to remove tax-deductible status from their website or other materials
required to distribute surplus gifts and donations to an eligible DGR.
If your DGR endorsement was revoked and you are dissatisfied with our decision, you can lodge an objection.
Next steps
Check your organisation’s continued eligibility to be endorsed as a DGR, by completing a review of your DGR endorsement.
If your DGR endorsement was revoked, you must register as a charity with the ACNC before re-applying for your endorsement. The ACNC page, Start a charityExternal Link, has useful information for charities.
If you have any questions about DGR endorsement, phone us on 1300 130 248 between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm, Monday to Friday.
Source: United States Senator for Illinois Dick Durbin
July 08, 2025
WASHINGTON – In a speech on the Senate floor, U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) today shared his condolences for the lives lost and those impacted by the flash floods that devastated Central Texas this past weekend and thanked the first responders and volunteers who have worked around the clock to save lives.
“I know I speak for millions of Americans when I say we are heartbroken over the flash floods that devastated Central Texas this past weekend. Early Friday morning, while most were fast asleep, a foot of rain fell onto Texas Hill Country. This deluge flowed into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise by 26 feet in 45 minutes,” Durbin said. “Near the Guadalupe, a girl’s sleepaway camp, Camp Mystic, which had been there for 99 years, was all but destroyed by the floods. Already, Camp Mystic has confirmed that 27 of their campers and counselors died in that flood. I send my deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those campers and counselors.”
Durbin continued, “Tragically, the flooding in Texas continues to take lives. More than 100 people have perished, and that number is expected to grow, sadly, in the coming days. In the midst of this disaster, I am heartened by the kindness and courage shown by the first responders and volunteers. Twenty separate agencies, at every level of government, have come together to help save lives. At Camp Mystic, counselors, many of whom had just graduated from high school, risked their own lives to save younger campers. We will never forget their bravery.”
Durbin concluded, “This disaster has impacted people of both political [parties]—Republicans and Democrats and Independents as well… I would hope that the Senate and the House would stand together, Democrats and Republicans, and say we’re going to be there for the victims of this disaster. I pray that we find the missing loved ones and that we take the necessary steps to stop another tragedy like this from occurring.”
Video of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here.
Audio of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here.
Footage of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here for TV Stations.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for Donald Trump’s administration to pursue mass government job cuts and the sweeping downsizing of numerous agencies, a decision that could lead to tens of thousands of layoffs while dramatically reshaping the federal bureaucracy.
Tuesday’s ruling stemmed from an executive order Trump issued in February ordering agencies to prepare for mass layoffs. At Trump’s direction, the administration has come up with plans to reduce staff at the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, State, Treasury, Veterans Affairs and more than a dozen other agencies.
In a brief unsigned order, the court said the Trump administration was “likely to succeed” in its argument that his directives were legally within his power.
The decision is the latest win for Trump’s broader efforts to consolidate power in the executive branch. The Supreme Court has sided with Trump in several cases on an emergency basis since he returned to office in January, including clearing the way for implementation of some of his hardline immigration policies.
The Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday lifted San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Susan Illston’s order in May that temporarily blocked large-scale federal layoffs while the case proceeded.
Illston had ruled that Trump exceeded his authority in ordering the government downsizing without consulting Congress, which created and funded the agencies in question.
“As history demonstrates, the president may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress,” Illston wrote.
While Tuesday’s decision cleared one major legal obstacle for the White House, the court noted that it was not assessing the legality of any specific layoff plans at federal agencies.
Those layoff proposals, some of which were submitted earlier this year, could still face legal challenges on a variety of grounds, including union opposition, statutory restrictions and civil service protections.
The White House said in a statement that the decision is a “definitive victory for the president and his administration” that reinforced Trump’s authority to implement “efficiency across the federal government.”
However, two White House sources familiar with the matter, who asked to remain unidentified, said the ruling did not permit agencies to execute layoffs immediately. One of the sources said additional delays or legal hurdles “could alter the scope and timing of the cuts.”
A group of unions, nonprofits and local governments that sued to block the administration’s mass layoffs said the ruling “dealt a serious blow to our democracy and puts services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy” and vowed to continue fighting as the case proceeds.
The plaintiffs had warned in court filings that Trump’s plans, if allowed to proceed, would result in hundreds of thousands of layoffs.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll in April found that Americans narrowly favored Trump’s campaign to downsize the federal government, with about 56% saying they supported the effort and 40% opposed. Their views broke down along party lines, with 89% of Republicans but just 26% of Democrats supportive.
Some agencies whose downsizing plans had been put on hold said they would resume advancing those efforts.
“We will continue to move forward with our historic reorganization plan,” the State Department, which has proposed laying off nearly 2,000 employees, said on X.
DOGE CUTS
Upon taking office in January, Trump launched a massive campaign to cut the 2.3-million strong federal civilian workforce, led by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk and his mostly young lieutenants immediately moved into key government agencies, fired workers, gained access to government computer systems and virtually shuttered two agencies – the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Trump and Musk said the bloated federal bureaucracy needed to be downsized. Federal workers’ unions and most Democrats say the cuts so far, and the plans for further mass layoffs, have been carried out haphazardly, leading to chaos inside many agencies and threatening important public services such as the processing of Social Security claims.
By late April, about 100 days into the effort, the government overhaul had resulted in the firing, resignations and early retirements of 260,000 civil servants, according to a Reuters tally.
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole member of the nine-person court to publicly dissent from Tuesday’s decision, criticizing the “court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this president’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture.”
Tuesday’s decision extended Trump’s winning record at the Supreme Court since taking office. The court has let Trump’s administration resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own without offering them a chance to show the harms they could face and end temporary legal status previously granted on humanitarian grounds to hundreds of thousands of migrants.
In addition, it has allowed Trump to implement his ban on transgender people in the U.S. military, blocked a judge’s order that the administration rehire thousands of fired employees and curbed the power of federal judges to impose nationwide rulings impeding presidential policies.
Most of these decisions have been issued as emergency orders, known colloquially as the shadow docket, that respond to applications for immediate action from the court.
Imagine your friend hasn’t replied to a message in a few hours. Most people might think, “they are probably just busy”.
But someone with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) might spiral into a flood of thoughts like, “they must hate me!” or “I’ve ruined the friendship!”
These intense emotional reactions to real or imagined rejection are part of what’s called rejection sensitive dysphoria.
The term isn’t a formal diagnosis, but it’s gaining traction in both research and clinical work, especially among adults seeking to understand themselves better.
So, what is rejection sensitive dysphoria, how does it relate to ADHD, and how can we handle it with more compassion?
It’s more than just disliking criticism
Everyone feels hurt when they’re criticised or left out. But rejection sensitivity dysphoria isn’t just about “not liking” feedback. The word dysphoria refers to intense emotional distress.
People with rejection sensitivity dysphoria describe overwhelming reactions to perceived rejection, even if no one actually said or did anything cruel.
A passing comment such as “I thought you were going to do it this way” can trigger feelings of shame, embarrassment or self-doubt.
The emotional pain often feels immediate and consuming, leading some people to withdraw, over-apologise or lash out to protect themselves.
The ADHD brain and emotional hypersensitivity
ADHD is often associated with attention or impulsivity, but one major (and often overlooked) component is emotional dysregulation: difficulty managing and recovering from strong emotional responses.
This isn’t a character flaw; it’s a neurological difference. Brain imaging studies show people with ADHD tend to have differences in how their amygdala (the brain’s emotional alarm system) and prefrontal cortex (which regulates impulses and emotions) work together.
The amygdala is the brain’s emotional alarm system. The prefrontal cortex regulates emotions. chaiyo12/Shutterstock
The result? Emotional experiences hit harder and take longer to settle.
A 2018 study highlights this imbalance in emotional control circuits in people with ADHD, explaining why intense feelings can seem to “take over” before logical thinking kicks in.
What does the research say?
Recent research from 2024 reports a strong link between ADHD symptoms and rejection sensitivity. It found students with higher ADHD symptom levels also reported significantly more rejection sensitivity, including a heightened fear of being negatively evaluated or criticised.
Further evidence comes from a 2018 study which showed adolescents with ADHD symptoms were far more sensitive to peer feedback than their peers. Their brain activity revealed they were more emotionally reactive to both praise and criticism, suggesting they may perceive neutral social cues as emotionally charged.
This reflects what I see daily in my clinic. One 13-year-old boy I work with is creative, empathetic and full of potential, yet social anxiety tied to a deep fear of rejection often holds him back. He once told me, “if I say no, they won’t like me anymore”. That fear drives him to go along with things he later regrets, simply to keep the peace and avoid losing connection.
This constant social hypervigilance is mentally draining. Without support, it can spiral into shame, low confidence and ongoing mental health struggles.
Adults with ADHD aren’t immune either. A 2022 study explored how adults with ADHD experience criticism and found many linked it to persistent feelings of failure, low self-worth and emotional reactivity – even when the criticism was constructive or mild.
One client I support – a high-achieving professional diagnosed in her 50s – described learning about rejection sensitive dysphoria as “finding the missing piece of the puzzle”.
Despite consistently excelling in every role, she had long felt anxious about how she was perceived by colleagues. When she received a minor, formal complaint at work, she spiralled into intense self-doubt and shame.
Instead of brushing it off, she thought: “I’m too much”. This belief
had been silently reinforced for years by her emotional sensitivity to feedback.
What helps?
If you experience rejection sensitivity dysphoria, you’re not alone, and you’re not broken.
Here are some tools that may help:
name it. Saying to yourself, “This feels like rejection sensitivity,” can give you distance from the emotional flood
pause before reacting. Taking slow breaths, counting backwards, or stepping outside are simple grounding strategies that help calm the body’s stress response and restore balance to your nervous system. Research shows slowing your breath and grounding your senses can help shift your body out of fight-or-flight mode, supporting clearer thinking and emotional regulation
challenge the story. Ask yourself, “What else could be true?” or “How would I speak to a friend feeling this way?”
consider therapy. Working with a psychologist who understands ADHD and rejection sensitivity dysphoria can help untangle these reactions and develop healthy, self-compassionate responses. The Australian Psychological Society has a Find a Psychologist service: you can search by location, areas of expertise (such as anxiety, ADHD, trauma) and the type of therapy you’re interested in
start early with kids. Helping children with ADHD learn emotional language, boundary-setting and resilience can prevent rejection sensitivity from becoming overwhelming. For parents, resources such as Raising Children Network and books like The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson offer practical ways to teach these skills at home
communicate gently. If you work or live with someone who has ADHD, try to give feedback clearly and kindly. Avoid sarcasm or vague phrasing. A little extra clarity can go a long way.
Rejection sensitivity dysphoria isn’t about being fragile or “weak”. It’s about how the ADHD brain processes emotional and social cues. With insight, tools and support, these experiences can become manageable.
Victoria Barclay-Timmis is a clinical psychologist and works in private practice.
To love and be loved is something most people want in their lives.
In the modern world, we often see stories about the difficulties of finding love and the trials of dating and marriage. Sometimes, the person we love doesn’t love us. Sometimes, we don’t love the person who loves us.
Ancient Greeks and Romans also had a lot to say about this subject. In fact, most of the issues people face today in their search for love are already mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature.
So, what did they say? And is the advice they put forward still relevant for modern people?
Advice for finding a lover
The Roman poet Ovid (43BCE–17CE) wrote a poem called The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria). In it, he offered advice for those who are still single.
First, Ovid says, you should make an effort to find someone you’re interested in. Your lover “will not come floating down to you through the tenuous air, she must be sought”.
As suitable places to find a lover, Ovid recommends walking in porticos and gardens, attending the theatre, or (surprisingly enough) lingering near law courts.
You need to catch someone’s eye and then invent an excuse to talk with them, he says.
Seek your lover in the daytime, says Ovid. Be careful of the night. You won’t choose the right person if you’re drunk. And you can’t see their face properly if it’s too dark – they might be uglier than you think.
Second, Ovid says you need to look presentable. Make sure your clothes are clean and you have a good haircut. Moreover, keep yourself groomed properly at all times:
Do not let your nails project, and let them be free of dirt; nor let any hair be in the hollow of your nostrils. Let not the breath of your mouth be sour and unpleasing.
Ovid’s The Art of Love may be regarded as a kind of love manual. But aside from making personal efforts to find a lover, people could also use matchmakers.
However, matchmaking was a difficult process. Sometimes matchmakers didn’t tell the truth about the situations of the parties involved. So the Athenian writer Xenophon (430–353 BCE) says people were sometimes “victims of deception” in the matchmaking process.
What if you’re not in love?
The ancients recognised that not being in love can be a problem. They thought it bad for your mental and physical health, but also for society more broadly.
For example, the Roman writer Claudius Aelian (2nd–3rd century CE) in his Historical Miscellany says soldiers who are in love will fight better than soldiers who are not in love:
In the heat of battle when war brings men into combat, a man who is not in love could not match one who is. The man untouched by love avoids and runs away from the man who loves, as if he were an outsider uninitiated into the god’s rites, and his bravery depends on his character and physical strength.
According to Aelian, the Spartans had a punishment for men who did not fall in love:
Any man of good appearance and character who did not fall in love with someone well-bred was also fined, because despite his excellence he did not love anyone […] lovers’ affection for their beloved has a remarkable power of stimulating the virtues.
So, when two people are in love, they can inspire each other and bring out the best in one another. Being in love can help a person become better and achieve more.
Fighting for and keeping a lover
If we are lucky, the person we love will also love us back, and we won’t have any love rivals.
But what happens when the person we love is also loved by someone else? We may need to put in more effort to win the affection of that person, but sometimes this brings us into conflicts.
For example, the Roman orator and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE), in his On the Orator, tells how Gaius Memmius, Roman tribune of the year 111 BCE, apparently took a bite out of his love rival’s arm, “when he had a quarrel with him at Tarracina over a girlfriend”.
Some ways to keep one’s lover interested that are mentioned in ancient sources include showing off one’s wealth.
For example, in one of the plays of the poet Alexis (375–275 BCE) a young man who is in love puts on a large banquet to impress his girlfriend with a display of wealth. Engagements were at that time sometimes cancelled if it turned out the husband was too poor.
Of course, things did not always work out, and people had grievances against former lovers. One particularly famous invective was from the poet Martial (38–104 CE) to a woman called Manneia:
Manneia, your little dog licks your face and lips. Small wonder that a dog likes eating dung!
Timeless concerns
Today, we often see debates about whether it’s better to stay single or get into a relationship.
The same goes for antiquity. In the 4th-century BCE play Arrephoros or The Pipe Girl by poet Menander, one character says:
If you’ve got any sense, you won’t get married […] I’m married myself – which is why I’m advising you not to do it.
Others lamented that they missed their opportunity for love. So the poet Pindar (6th–5th century BCE) wrote a poem regretting that he could not make the much younger Theoxenus his boyfriend:
You should have picked love’s flowers at the right time, my heart, when you were young. But as for the sparkling rays from Theoxenus’ eyes, whoever looks on them and is not roiled with longing has a black heart forged with cold fire out of steel or iron.
Clearly, finding a lover was as difficult then as it is now.
Konstantine Panegyres does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Reunited twins Esther (left) and ShuangjieBarbara Demick
At the end of a long road trip through rural China in 2009, American journalist Barbara Demick had an encounter that would change the course of her life. In the previous days, she had interviewed several parents whose children had been forcibly removed from them by government officials. Demick suspected there may be a link between the missing children and China’s booming international adoption industry.
She had enough for her story, but some instinct compelled her to follow the next lead to remote Gaofeng Village, high in the mountains of Hunan Province.
Her driver could only take her so far. The dirt road ended at a stream, where she was met by local woman Zanhua Zeng and her daughter Shuangjie. They guided her across a makeshift bridge and into the village where “everything was in the process of falling down or going up”.
Zanhua Zeng and daughter Shuangjie, meeting Barbara Demick in a moment that would change all their lives. Barbara Demick
There, she learnt about two-year-old Fangfang, daughter of Zanhua and twin sister of Shuangjie, violently taken from her aunt’s care in 2002. Government officials had told the family they were in breach of China’s One Child Policy and were not allowed to keep the baby. They had no idea what had happened to their daughter and sister.
Zanhua’s parting words were: “Come back again and next time bring my daughter.”
Review: Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, A True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins – Barbara Demick (Text)
Extraordinary consequences
At the time, Demick had no premonition of the significance the Zeng family and their story would play in her life – and those of many others. But in writing a front-page report for the Los Angeles Times about the links between China’s stolen children and international adoptions, including a small piece about the missing twin Fangfang, she started a chain of events with extraordinary consequences.
Fangfang (renamed Esther), in the referral photo supplied by the orphanage.
For Zanhua and Shuangjie, it would eventually lead to a reunion with Fangfang, accompanied by Demick, who helped organise it. She was to develop an enduring connection with the family – and with Fangfang’s adoptive American family, too.
Daughters of the Bamboo Grove does what the best stories do: humanises a big issue. In this case, China’s one child policy and the international adoption industry it created.
Demick’s book is a story of China, and of incomprehensible government control. But as told through this case of the separated twins, it’s also a story of family, identity, loss and resilience.
It’s personal and moving, but also thoroughly researched, strengthened with compelling and confronting statistics and anecdotes.
The twins’ meeting as young women was documented by Barbara Demick for the Los Angeles Times.
Demick outlines the population growth that led to the introduction of the One Child Policy in 1979 and the rise of the State Family Planning Commission, set up to enforce the law limiting most Chinese families to one child.
“Family Planning morphed into a monstrous organization that dwarfed the police and military in manpower,” she writes. “By the 1990s, it was estimated that eighty-three million Chinese worked at least part-time for Family Planning.” (By comparison, China’s combined armed forces were estimated to number roughly three million at the time.)
The organisation was “intrusive in the extreme”, with female workers having to report when they had their periods and, in some cases, show their blood-stained sanitary pads. After giving birth to their first child, women were forced to have an IUD or were sterilised.
People who violated the law received fines of two to six times their annual income. If violators were civil servants, they could lose their jobs. In rural areas, where people were less reliant on government jobs, the policy was implemented with “brute force”.
People were beaten. Sometimes their homes were demolished or set on fire. “If you violate the policy, your family will be destroyed,” read a sign on a wall not far from the Zeng’s home. Family Planning officials regularly checked even the most remote villages, sometimes tipped off by neighbours.
If a woman was discovered to be pregnant after having a child, she would be forced to undergo an abortion. The methods were “crude, often barbaric,” Demick writes. “Doctors would sometimes induce labor and then kill the baby with an injection of formaldehyde into the cranium before the feet emerged.”
Although Chinese people, particularly those from rural communities, often wanted to have bigger families, they had no power to fight the authorities. Those who tried to quietly subvert the system were ruthlessly punished.
These practices were so common, they were generally accepted. But when government officials started to take babies from families who had defied the policy, resistance grew. Other families started reporting cases like what had happened to Fangfang. Family Planning had forcibly removed children, refusing to provide any details about their whereabouts.
Officials miscalculated in 2005 when they dared to take a boy, Demick writes. He lived in a town, attended school and was not as poor as some of the other affected families. The school made a complaint, which was supported by a local politician. The boy was returned to his family after 29 days.
Hearing about this case emboldened other families to mobilise and fight back. These were among the first families Demick met when she travelled to cover the story of the missing children in 2009.
Child trafficking by ‘good Samaritans’
In the meantime, news was starting to emerge about the child trafficking of children through Chinese orphanages, with “good Samaritans” who “rescued” babies being paid increasingly large amounts of money. “The orphanages were competing with one another to procure babies,” Demick writes.
Chinese babies were in high demand for international adoption, and it had become a lucrative business. One Hunan orphanage director later told police they started a service to allow foreigners to adopt babies in 2001; they were charged a US$3,000 cash donation per baby. In some cases, the babies genuinely needed homes and families, Demick writes, but the payment was “in effect a bounty that incentivised a wave of kidnapping of female babies and toddlers”.
Shaoyang Social Welfare Institute, where Esther spent the last six months of her life in China. Barbara Demick
It gradually became clear that many of the children removed by Family Planning officials were among the wave of Chinese babies and toddlers adopted by families from other countries, all of whom paid significant fees to do so, as well as donating to the orphanages. It was later revealed that orphanages routinely fabricated information about how and where the babies had been reportedly left.
By the time Demick’s reports were published in 2009, nearly 100,000 babies had been sent out of China, more than half to the US. The worldwide number would reach 160,000 by 2024, when China ended its international adoption program.
Demick’s story about stolen babies, plus other reports from within China and elsewhere, stunned the international adoption community and parents of Chinese adoptees around the world. Until then, China was perceived to be the most ethical choice for international adoption. For adoptive parents who now feared their adopted children could be taken from them, the revelations were terrifying, Demick says.
Marsha and Esther (background) in their Texas kitchen. Barbara Demick
One of these parents was a Texan women named Marsha. She and her husband Al had adopted two Chinese girls: Victoria in 1999 and Esther in 2002. Through developing connections among families who had adopted from China, Demick came across Marsha – and realised Esther may be Fangfang: the missing twin.
She was correct. However, the story was far from resolved, which explains, in part, why Demick had plenty of material for her book.
Reporter as dogged detective
Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is a testament to dogged reporting. Demick’s skills as a researcher, interviewer – and effectively, a detective – imbue the book with substance and credibility.
She handles difficult subject matter sensitively, portraying the Zeng family in China and adoptive mother Marsha in the US with empathy. She acknowledges the challenges they faced and recognises their devotion to their children.
Her descriptions of the twin sisters, Shuangjie and Esther, are perceptive and gentle. Restraint is a powerful writing tool and Demick uses it here to great effect.
This is the moment where the twins first meet, outside the Zeng family home in China:
When everybody was out of the van, the two of them stood next to each other, side by side, facing the photographer. Nobody embraced. Nobody spoke. I imagined the twins as bride and groom in an arranged marriage, meeting for the first time, willing to pose for the photographer but not yet able to engage in conversation.
Twins Esther (left) and Shaungjie, separated most of their lives, meet for the first time since babyhood. Barbara Demick
Demick came to this story with the perspectives and limitations of an American journalist, but has gone to remarkable lengths to hear and convey the voices of Chinese people impacted by the One Child Policy.
At the same time, she challenges Western paternalistic ideas around adoption, questioning the view expressed by many she encounters that the Chinese children adopted by Westerners were lucky, guaranteed to have better lives elsewhere.
China’s One Child Policy was not formally abolished until 2015. In its 35 years, it did almost unimaginable damage, concludes Demick:
the policy shattered marriages, led to the deaths of countless children and suicides of parents, and left China with a population expected to continue declining into the next century. It was all encompassing, leaving almost everyone a victim or perpetrator or both.
For the hundreds of thousands of children sent out of China during this period, the legacy of One Child endures. As Demick writes, they are
citizens of their adopted countries but tethered by blood to another family and country they struggle to comprehend. Living in this in-between space between worlds.
In dedicating Daughters of the Bamboo Grove to Chinese adoptees around the world, Demick says she hopes in some small way it helps them to understand where they came from, and how they got to where they are today.
Kathryn Shine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In June, a Traditional Owner cultural burn took place at Ryans Lagoon, 20 minutes outside of Wodonga on Duduroa Country.
The burn, undertaken by Duduroa Dhargal Aboriginal Corporation (DDAC) and supported by both CFA and Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMVic), was part of an ongoing project to restore Country at the wetland site.
CFA Cultural Heritage Advisor, Michael Sherwen, oversaw the burn for CFA alongside his Vegetation Management team members.
“The wetland has been quite degraded with weeds and biomass accumulation over time. So, the objective of the burn was to reduce that mass and give opportunities for native species to come through.” Michael said.
The restoration of Ryans Lagoon is part of a bigger body of work being done by CFA through the Safer Together approach, which facilitates greater engagement with Traditional Owners.
“It’s been a great opportunity to work collaboratively with the Fire Management sector. But more importantly, working at that grassroots level and enabling Traditional Owners and custodians to apply fire to Country,” Michael said.
“That’s the most important outcome, is having that bottom-up approach.”
Beau Murray, a Water Officer at DDAC, spoke about the impact of the partnership.
“Having the Aunt and Uncles partner with CFA and FFMVic for so long, it’s been a really positive partnership. To have their support with cultural burns, it just works really well.” Beau said.
The recent burn is the third that DDAC have carried out at Ryans Lagoon, and the positive impacts of traditional land management are already prominent.
“It’s been turned from what was previously just a cow paddock into the reserve that it is now. To see that the site is being looked after, after being degraded for so long, it’s really great,” Beau said.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on July 9, 2025.
Teeth record the hidden history of your childhood climate and diet Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tanya M. Smith, Professor in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution & Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University Douglas Sacha / Getty Images The climate we live in affects our lives in profound ways: hot summers, cold winters, dry spells and wet weather
Netflix’s Shark Whisperer wants us to think ‘sexy conservation’ is the way to save sharks – does it have a point? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Hopkins, Senior Lecturer in Education (Curriculum and Pedagogy), University of the Sunshine Coast Netflix In the new Netflix documentary Shark Whisperer, the great white shark gets an image makeover – from Jaws villain to misunderstood friend and admirer. But the star of the documentary is not
How do coronial inquests work? Here’s what they can and can’t do Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marc Trabsky, Associate Professor of Law, Monash University Northern Territory Coroner Elizabeth Armitage’s inquest findings into the death of Kumanjayi Walker have sparked conversations across Australia. The coroner found the NT police officer who shot Walker, Zachary Rolfe, was “racist”, and she couldn’t exclude the possibility that
Greek and Roman nymphs weren’t just sexy nature spirits. They had other important jobs too Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kitty Smith, PhD Candidate in Classical Greek and Roman History, University of Sydney Acteon, having accidentally seen the goddess Diana and her nymphs bathing, begins to change into a stag. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. George S. Amory, Object Number: 64.208. Could you ever be
American science is in crisis. It’s a great opportunity for Australia to snap up top scientists Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kylie Walker, Visiting Fellow, National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University Stellalevi / Getty Images Science in the United States in in trouble. The National Science Foundation, a key research funding agency, has suffered devastating funding cuts under the current administration. Critics say
Some young people sexually abuse. Here’s how to reduce reoffending by up to 90% Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jesse Cale, Associate Professor of Criminology, Deputy Director Research (Griffith Youth Forensic Service), Griffith University When we think about who’s responsible for sexual abuse in Australia, we usually picture adults. But young people are responsible for a substantial proportion of sexual offences nationwide. Up to a third
XFG could become the next dominant COVID variant. Here’s what to know about ‘Stratus’ Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Griffin, Professor, Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, The University of Queensland visualspace/Getty Images Given the number of times this has happened already, it should come as little surprise that we’re now faced with yet another new subvariant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID. This new subvariant
Can a pizza box go in the yellow bin – or not? An expert answers this and other messy recycling questions Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pooria Pasbakhsh, Research Fellow in Polymer Upcycling, The University of Melbourne ViDCan/Shutterstock Have you ever gone to toss something into the recycling bin – a jam jar, a pizza box, a takeaway container encrusted with yesterday’s lunch – and wondered if you’re doing it right? Perhaps you
AI is driving down the price of knowledge – universities have to rethink what they offer Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Dodd, Professional Teaching Fellow, Business School, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau For a long time, universities worked off a simple idea: knowledge was scarce. You paid for tuition, showed up to lectures, completed assignments and eventually earned a credential. That process did two things: it
Academic slams NZ government over ‘compromised’ foreign policy Asia Pacific Report A prominent academic has criticised the New Zealand coalition government for compromising the country’s traditional commitment to upholding an international rules-based order due to a “desire not to offend” the Trump administration. Professor Robert Patman, an inaugural sesquicentennial distinguished chair and a specialist in international relations at the University of Otago, has
Interest rates are on hold at 3.85%, as the Reserve Bank opts for caution over mortgage relief Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stella Huangfu, Associate Professor, School of Economics, University of Sydney Thurtell/Getty Images The Reserve Bank of Australia has kept the cash rate at 3.85%, after cutting it in February and May. Those earlier moves were aimed at supporting the economy as growth slowed and inflation eased. This
The US has high hopes for a new Gaza ceasefire, but Israel’s long-term aims seem far less peaceful Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ali Mamouri, Research Fellow, Middle East Studies, Deakin University US President Donald Trump has hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for dinner at the White House, where he has declared talks to end the war in Gaza are “going along very well”. In turn, Netanyahu revealed he
What makes a good AI prompt? Here are 4 expert tips Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sandra Peter, Director of Sydney Executive Plus, Business School, University of Sydney FOTOSPLASH/Shutterstock “And do you work well with AI?” As tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot and other generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems become part of everyday workflows, more companies are looking for employees who can answer
Saying goodbye is never easy: why we mourn the end of our favourite TV series Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Gerace, Senior Lecturer and Head of Course – Positive Psychology, CQUniversity Australia Netflix Has the ending of Squid Game left you feeling downhearted? The South Korean megahit struck a nerve with audiences worldwide, with millions logging in to Netflix to follow protagonist Seong Gi-hun and fellow
Are chemicals to blame for cancer in young people? Here’s what the evidence says Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) Cancer is traditionally known as a disease affecting mostly older people. But some worrying trends show cancer rates in younger people aged under 50 are on the
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on July 9, 2025.
Teeth record the hidden history of your childhood climate and diet Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tanya M. Smith, Professor in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution & Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University Douglas Sacha / Getty Images The climate we live in affects our lives in profound ways: hot summers, cold winters, dry spells and wet weather
Netflix’s Shark Whisperer wants us to think ‘sexy conservation’ is the way to save sharks – does it have a point? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Hopkins, Senior Lecturer in Education (Curriculum and Pedagogy), University of the Sunshine Coast Netflix In the new Netflix documentary Shark Whisperer, the great white shark gets an image makeover – from Jaws villain to misunderstood friend and admirer. But the star of the documentary is not
How do coronial inquests work? Here’s what they can and can’t do Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marc Trabsky, Associate Professor of Law, Monash University Northern Territory Coroner Elizabeth Armitage’s inquest findings into the death of Kumanjayi Walker have sparked conversations across Australia. The coroner found the NT police officer who shot Walker, Zachary Rolfe, was “racist”, and she couldn’t exclude the possibility that
Greek and Roman nymphs weren’t just sexy nature spirits. They had other important jobs too Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kitty Smith, PhD Candidate in Classical Greek and Roman History, University of Sydney Acteon, having accidentally seen the goddess Diana and her nymphs bathing, begins to change into a stag. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. George S. Amory, Object Number: 64.208. Could you ever be
American science is in crisis. It’s a great opportunity for Australia to snap up top scientists Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kylie Walker, Visiting Fellow, National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University Stellalevi / Getty Images Science in the United States in in trouble. The National Science Foundation, a key research funding agency, has suffered devastating funding cuts under the current administration. Critics say
Some young people sexually abuse. Here’s how to reduce reoffending by up to 90% Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jesse Cale, Associate Professor of Criminology, Deputy Director Research (Griffith Youth Forensic Service), Griffith University When we think about who’s responsible for sexual abuse in Australia, we usually picture adults. But young people are responsible for a substantial proportion of sexual offences nationwide. Up to a third
XFG could become the next dominant COVID variant. Here’s what to know about ‘Stratus’ Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Griffin, Professor, Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, The University of Queensland visualspace/Getty Images Given the number of times this has happened already, it should come as little surprise that we’re now faced with yet another new subvariant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID. This new subvariant
Can a pizza box go in the yellow bin – or not? An expert answers this and other messy recycling questions Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pooria Pasbakhsh, Research Fellow in Polymer Upcycling, The University of Melbourne ViDCan/Shutterstock Have you ever gone to toss something into the recycling bin – a jam jar, a pizza box, a takeaway container encrusted with yesterday’s lunch – and wondered if you’re doing it right? Perhaps you
AI is driving down the price of knowledge – universities have to rethink what they offer Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Dodd, Professional Teaching Fellow, Business School, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau For a long time, universities worked off a simple idea: knowledge was scarce. You paid for tuition, showed up to lectures, completed assignments and eventually earned a credential. That process did two things: it
Academic slams NZ government over ‘compromised’ foreign policy Asia Pacific Report A prominent academic has criticised the New Zealand coalition government for compromising the country’s traditional commitment to upholding an international rules-based order due to a “desire not to offend” the Trump administration. Professor Robert Patman, an inaugural sesquicentennial distinguished chair and a specialist in international relations at the University of Otago, has
Interest rates are on hold at 3.85%, as the Reserve Bank opts for caution over mortgage relief Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stella Huangfu, Associate Professor, School of Economics, University of Sydney Thurtell/Getty Images The Reserve Bank of Australia has kept the cash rate at 3.85%, after cutting it in February and May. Those earlier moves were aimed at supporting the economy as growth slowed and inflation eased. This
The US has high hopes for a new Gaza ceasefire, but Israel’s long-term aims seem far less peaceful Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ali Mamouri, Research Fellow, Middle East Studies, Deakin University US President Donald Trump has hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for dinner at the White House, where he has declared talks to end the war in Gaza are “going along very well”. In turn, Netanyahu revealed he
What makes a good AI prompt? Here are 4 expert tips Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sandra Peter, Director of Sydney Executive Plus, Business School, University of Sydney FOTOSPLASH/Shutterstock “And do you work well with AI?” As tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot and other generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems become part of everyday workflows, more companies are looking for employees who can answer
Saying goodbye is never easy: why we mourn the end of our favourite TV series Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Gerace, Senior Lecturer and Head of Course – Positive Psychology, CQUniversity Australia Netflix Has the ending of Squid Game left you feeling downhearted? The South Korean megahit struck a nerve with audiences worldwide, with millions logging in to Netflix to follow protagonist Seong Gi-hun and fellow
Are chemicals to blame for cancer in young people? Here’s what the evidence says Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) Cancer is traditionally known as a disease affecting mostly older people. But some worrying trends show cancer rates in younger people aged under 50 are on the
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tanya M. Smith, Professor in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution & Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University
The climate we live in affects our lives in profound ways: hot summers, cold winters, dry spells and wet weather all leave their mark.
For growing children, one way seasons and storms are recorded is in their teeth. As we have shown in new research, teeth contain a week-by-week climatic history of their owner’s childhood.
To establish this, we studied the teeth of wild chimpanzees, captive macaque monkeys, and a woman born in Brisbane in January 1990. Her infancy included distinctive weather events – but its more powerful use is to reveal the climates that shaped individual lives thousands or even millions of years ago.
How does it work?
You wouldn’t know it, but changes in rainfall and temperature cause subtle changes in drinking water. Specifically, they affect the proportions of different atomic variants of oxygen (the isotopes oxygen-18 and oxygen-16).
Under a microscope, you can see tiny lines inside teeth that correspond to daily layers of growth. Using a machine called the Sensitive High Resolution Ion MicroProbe (SHRIMP) at the Australian National University, we vaporised spots of enamel corresponding to these lines and analysed the oxygen isotopes in the vapour.
Once we know about the balance of oxygen isotopes, we can work backwards to determine changes in drinking water and the corresponding climatic conditions.
Top: Teeth start to develop before birth, forming mineralised layers with visible growth lines. Middle: the balance of oxygen isotopes from tiny spots in the enamel are sampled with the SHRIMP. Bottom: isotopic values reveal cycles of wetter (dark blue) and drier (light blue) seasons during the development of the tooth. Smith et al. 2025 / Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta
Brisbane, 1990
Our Australian tooth donor began her life during a wet summer during which a cyclone dumped enormous amounts of rain on Brisbane and surrounds, and months of high rainfall in the region persisted through to autumn.
Oxygen isotopes (red) in a child’s tooth enamel compared to local rainfall (blue). Isotopic values decrease with rainfall and become higher during dry seasons. Smith et al. 2025 / Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta
Her tooth enamel formed during the summer of 1990 showed oxygen isotope trends that were consistent with the rainfall patterns at the time. The minimum values occurred close in time to the wettest period, and the maximum values happened towards the end of the long dry spell that began later in the year.
After she reached her first birthday, these climate markers became more challenging to interpret. This likely happened because she began to consume more cooked foods, which carry a different isotope balance from raw food and breast milk.
Diet records
Thankfully, the SHRIMP can also help us learn more about these dietary changes by measuring nitrogen isotopes in the tooth dentine (which is found under the outer layer of enamel). There is a known relationship between the balance of nitrogen-15 and nitrogen-14 and the protein in a child’s diet.
In an earlier study, we looked at these records in the same tooth. Mothers’ milk contains high levels of nitrogen-15, and our donor showed a clear signal of rising values from birth. Shortly after six months of age, her nitrogen isotope ratio began to fall, as her mother gradually began offering her fruits and vegetables to supplement her exclusive milk diet.
Nitrogen isotopes (red) in a child’s tooth compared to breastfeeding history (grey bars), showing higher values during intensive nursing and decreases as milk was gradually replaced with weaning foods. Smith et al. 2024 / American Journal of Biological Anthropology
During our donor’s second year of life, she was fed more solid foods, including bread, cheese, eggs, and yogurt – leading to a further decline in the isotopic ratio. She continued breastfeeding at night for a few months into her third year, and finally as she ceased nursing entirely, her nitrogen values reached a minimum.
From 35 years ago to 17 million years ago
Fine-scaled isotopic studies such as these are a world first. Teeth are typically sampled with hand-held drills or small saws to measure inputs from water and food.
These coarse sampling methods are relatively common and inexpensive, but they cannot show short-term changes in the composition of teeth. This limits how well they can be used to identify important environmental or dietary changes.
Our new technique has many applications. We’ve studied Neanderthal children from the Rhône basin of southeastern France, who experienced some rough seasons 250,000 years ago. By SHRIMPing thin tooth slices, and relating this to enamel formation ages, we were even able to estimate the seasons in which one child was born and weaned 2.5 years later.
Designed for geological studies, the Sensitive High Resolution Ion MicroProbe (SHRIMP) can be used to determine the balance of different atomic variants in many different kinds of material – including teeth. Tanya Smith / Australian Academy of Science
We have just begun to produce isotopic weaning curves for humans who lived several hundred to several thousand years ago, yielding new insights into ancient maternal behaviour and infant health.
This technology can also be applied to much more ancient fossils, including apes who lived in Africa 17 million years ago. In this instance, isotopic differences between fossils were consistent with other evidence that a changing climate played an important role in influencing the anatomy and development of humanity’s forebears.
Teeth hold many more tales, and technological breakthroughs such as those at the Australian National University will continue to reveal hidden details of our ancient humanity as well as the unintended consequences of our modern lifestyles.
Tanya M. Smith receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Ian Stuart Williams has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council.
Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
HANGZHOU, July 9 (Xinhua) — Typhoon Danas, the fourth typhoon this year, made landfall for the third time in a coastal area of Rui’an city in east China’s Zhejiang Province on Tuesday night, local authorities confirmed.
The center of the tropical storm made landfall around 11:45 p.m. on July 8, packing winds of up to 20 meters per second and a minimum central pressure of at least 992 hectopascals, according to the provincial meteorological observatory.
Earlier, Danas made landfall in Taiwan for the first time early Monday morning and a second time in Dongtou district of Wenzhou city, Zhejiang province, at 9:25 p.m. Tuesday. -0-
Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source of the information. It is an accurate report of what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (8th District of New York)
Today, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber where he emphasized that the Republicans’ Big Ugly Bill will gut healthcare and nutritional assistance for millions of hardworking Americans in order to pay for tax breaks for billionaires.
ARI MELBER: The Democratic Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, joins us now. Good evening, and thanks for joining us at this very busy time.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Good evening. Great to be with you.
ARI MELBER: Great to have you. I want to just begin, before we get to any of the Washington politics, with this tragedy down in, of course, Kerr County, Texas. Death toll is over 100. As of tonight, we have the latest reporting, which is 161 people are still missing, including a lot of individuals that, of course, have not been accounted for and the worst is feared in terms of what we’re hearing. What is your response to this ongoing, unfolding tragedy that’s affecting so many? You know, what else can the federal government do?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Our thoughts and prayers are certainly with all of the families who’ve been impacted by this terrible tragedy, and we’ll continue to stand with them and do everything that we can to try to be there for them as a federal government in terms of the recovery and the rebuilding that will necessarily have to take place. Right now, we’re also appreciative, of course, of the fact that we have first responders who are still engaged in a search and rescue effort to try to hopefully find folks who have not been currently located. I think there will also be a moment where, as a Congress, we need to aggressively ask some questions about what happened? Why did it happen? How do we prevent this type of tragedy from ever happening again? There’s real concern, Ari, with the fact that, you know, the National Weather Service has been decimated by the Trump administration. There’s real concern that Donald Trump and his Homeland Security Secretary have threatened to defund FEMA. And there’s real concern that the Texas State Government may not have necessarily done everything that they could have done in advance of the flooding to protect those communities.
ARI MELBER: Is this, since you mentioned, an area where you think that defunding at the state or federal level could have played a part in an avoidable level of tragedy?
LEADER JEFFRIES: That remains to be seen, but certainly we have to ask those questions, and we’re going to have to get those answers, and we’re prepared as Democrats to aggressively do just that.
ARI MELBER: Yeah. Understood. We showed you speaking on the floor there fighting the budget, I guess you and Cory Booker, I don’t know if you guys trade tips in the hallway about how you go that many hours. And I want to ask you about this, you know. We try to call it straight here and follow the facts, the evidence on all these issues here on this program. And it seems like on this one, Democrats have lost a lot of public skirmishes. It seems like Democrats won the messaging battle, but still didn’t have the votes. So I want to get your response to that, but I’ll put up on the screen the numbers here. Just top line—you have a lot more debt, kicking off over 11 million people from their current health coverage, going after popular programs like Medicaid and, overwhelmingly, as you know, as people learned about this bill, the more they learned, the more they didn’t like it. It’s overwhelmingly opposed. Before I get your answer, I just want to show again. Let’s get out of the coastal national news, let’s get out of the television news of coming out of these, you know, folks who might follow politics every day. We checked the polling. This was going underwater 18 points. And local coverage has actually echoed some of the facts Democrats have mentioned against the bill. Take a look.
VIDEO 1: It’s going to be a big, beautiful challenge for hospitals.
VIDEO 2: Rural hospitals could face a loss of medical care and services. Millions of Americans who have Medicaid face losing their healthcare coverage.
VIDEO 3: They’re anticipating about 500,000 people will be cut, will have their Medicaid benefits cut from the Big Ugly Bill.
VIDEO 4: There is no spinning this as if there’s a positive thing.
ARI MELBER: Did you get your message out effectively? And if so, what do you say to people who are frustrated that the bill still passed?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, the One Big Ugly Bill represents the largest cut to Medicaid in American history. Hospitals will close, nursing homes will shut down, community-based health clinics will be unable to operate and people are going to die in community after community after community, including in rural America. I think it certainly has been the case that we have successfully communicated across the country the implications of this One Big Ugly Bill. It hurts everyday Americans in order to reward billionaires. And we’re going to continue that effort in state after state after state, in congressional district after congressional district after congressional district. The American people should understandably be frustrated that they clearly have rejected this bill, did not want it to be passed, but Republicans in the House of Representatives have decided to once again be nothing more than a rubber stamp for Donald Trump’s extreme agenda. All we needed were two additional Republicans to join us, and we could have stopped this bill, that’s out of 220.
ARI MELBER: And what does it mean that Republicans said out loud they oppose the bill, or big parts of it, and still voted for it?
LEADER JEFFRIES: I spent a lot of time on the House floor, going through a lot of the letters that had been written by my Republican colleagues complaining about the Medicaid cuts, complaining about the cuts to the clean energy tax credits, complaining about the cuts to nutritional assistance and the fact that this bill rips food out of the mouths of children and then they turned around and bent the knee to Donald Trump, because that’s what they do. They don’t work for the American people at this particular point in time. They work for Donald Trump. They act like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump administration. It’s an embarrassment. And now that embarrassment will actually result in the American people being hurt in devastating ways.
ARI MELBER: We also track culture. As you know, sometimes the punchlines give you a sense of where the story is. Here is Jon Stewart.
JON STEWART (VIDEO): Holly s*** you what? You somehow managed to severely cut the safety net and expand the deficit. That’s impressive. That’s one of those. ‘Hey man, how did you gain all that weight?’ ‘Ozempic.’ That’s something that’s hard to do.
ARI MELBER: Does this tag the GOP as the fiscally irresponsible party? And where do we go from here? I mean, you’re a pretty young guy by the standards of Washington. Are we going to hear from them when they’re out of power again in however many years that a Democratic White House is growing the deficit? Does that even make sense given their record right now?
LEADER JEFFRIES:Republicans are complete phonies when it comes to be claiming to be the party of fiscal responsibility. All they have done, administration after administration after administration—they did this during the administration of George W Bush. They did it during Ronald Reagan’s administration. And now, of course, they’re doing it again during Donald Trump’s second administration—is explode the debt and the deficit. Why? In order to provide massive tax cuts for the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected and subsidize the lifestyles of the rich and shameless. Now you’ve got a bill where they actually have combined hurting everyday Americans, largest cut to Medicaid in American history, largest cut to nutritional assistance in American history, hurting veterans, hurting seniors, hurting children and at the same time, exploding the debt and the deficit. We are going to tattoo this disgusting abomination of a bill to the foreheads of every single Republican who voted for it.
ARI MELBER: Hardball tattoo politics there. All right. I want to ask you about the ongoing abuses of power alleged by Donald Trump. We’ve seen National Guard there in the streets. Democrats have sued over that. We have Marines used on a small basis, but seems like a test case. We have then, related, in the courts, although it might not get as much dramatic attention, certainly not the visuals like you see here. But this report about Trump claiming sweeping powers to literally nullify laws just passed by Congress, supported by Republicans, by the way. Legal experts telling The Times that Trump is claiming this power to immunize private parties to commit otherwise illegal acts and blatantly defying the recent TikTok rule, whether people agree with it or not, and I think you all know there’s some controversy about that TikTok ban. Since when does the President just say, well, we’ll enforce it later, or maybe not at all. And what specifically does your party do about that?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, Donald Trump has launched an all-out assault on the American way of life, on the rule of law and democracy itself. And this is going to require, of course, a Congress that actually functions as a separate and co-equal branch of government. We will not get that from the modern-day Republican Party, although we are still looking for some folks, just a handful, to show Liz Cheney or John McCain levels of courage to push back against the extremism that is coming from the Trump administration. We haven’t seen it so far, and that’s shameful, but we’ll continue to press them to try to achieve it on behalf of the American people. You know, the courts will need to function as a backstop. And unfortunately, we’ve seen, increasingly, an unwillingness by this Supreme Court to actually push back against Donald Trump and some of his executive overreach. At the end of the day, it was said during the founding of the Republic that when the people fear the government, there is tyranny. But when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
ARI MELBER: Yeah, of course. Yeah.
LEADER JEFFRIES: And at the end of the day, it’s going to be the people rising up, pushing back against this extremism, showing it in community after community after community and then, ultimately, when it’s time to go to the polls, to send a clear message that America is better than this.
ARI MELBER: So, let me take exactly where your answer goes. Someone listening might say, wow, that sounds good. I hope Hakeem Jeffries is right, but what if he’s wrong? What if we’re actually past the point where we can just count on free and fair elections when, as you know, and to be fair—you’ve spoken out about this, of course—the person in the office, he won lawfully, he won the Electoral College in what we know to be a free and fair election. But previously, when he lost, he tried to subvert that. We had a convicted sedition. He then freed the sedition convicts, as everybody knows. And so, there’s great concern about not a repeat of 2020, but a more effective version of it. And you’ve heard this concern. It’s not just random, sort of, activist or the most extreme sort of people worrying about it. James Carville, a longtime, sort of, centrist Democratic figure, said this about rigging the midterms.
JAMES CARVILLE(VIDEO): Actually, your concerns are legitimate. I would never tell anybody that’s worried that no, don’t you worry about that. He’s been trying to do anything that he can possibly to try to extricate himself from what is almost certain to be a humiliating loss in October, November of 2026. So, people should be worried, they should be vigilant, they should watch this.
ARI MELBER: Is this a legitimate concern? And if so, what are you doing about it?
LEADER JEFFRIES:We have to be incredibly vigilant to make sure that there are free and fair elections. I think we have to look at what’s in front of us. And this year, of course, there are off-year elections in New Jersey and in Virginia. We’ve got to make sure that the Democratic nominee, Mikie Sherrill, wins in New Jersey, the Democratic nominee, Abigail Spanberger, wins in Virginia. They’re both tremendous public servants, have served this country in a variety of different ways, including in the Congress. And then, of course, be prepared as it relates to the midterm elections. Now, the good news is—to the extent that there’s a silver lining in our electoral system—is that we don’t have a national election system. It’s state by state by state. And in many of the states where there will be competitive gubernatorial elections, and certainly in the overwhelming majority of the states where the House will be decided, there are Democratic Governors, Democratic Attorney Generals and Democratic Secretaries of State. I’d be far more concerned, honestly, Ari, if we were looking at a situation where the fate of the House would be determined in states where Republicans are in charge.
ARI MELBER: So, you’re saying—to be clear, because it’s a patchwork—you’re saying you’ve studied this, and if there are Republicans trying to play games, they’re not actually overseeing the races that you think would control the House outcome?
LEADER JEFFRIES: That’s absolutely correct. There are seats in New York, seats in New Jersey, seats in Michigan, seats in California, seats in Wisconsin, seats in Pennsylvania, seats in Arizona that, you know, by way of example, that are going to determine in large measure who controls the House in the aftermath of the midterm election. Every single one of those states have Democratic Governors, there are Democratic Attorney Generals, Democratic Secretaries of State. And so, that’s kind of the landscape that we find ourselves in. And I’ve got trust in those leaders to make sure that there are actual free and fair elections.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
Photo taken on Oct. 9, 2023 shows the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States. [Photo/Xinhua]
Tensions between Democrats and Republicans are on the rise amid the worst U.S. flooding event in recent memory.
That’s because a key U.S. Democrat is demanding an investigation into whether staff shortages at a crucial government office contributed to mounting deaths in the deadly flooding event in the U.S. state of Texas.
Experts believe the floods, and a possible investigation, could pose political problems for U.S. President Donald Trump.
Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua: “The floods are a problem for Trump because his administration cut workers and budgets for those who forecast the weather and aid in disaster relief.”
“It is the beginning of the hurricane season and there are likely to be a number of storms and high winds that harm people. What happened in Texas could end up happening in several different places around the country,” West said.
“Trump says he wants to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency and have states handle their own disasters. But when there is tremendous damage and loss of life, states immediately turn to the federal government for assistance. His budget cuts in crucial areas will plague him for the rest of his time in office,” West said.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer penned a letter Monday urging the Commerce Department to open an investigation into whether “staffing shortages at key local National Weather Service (NWS) stations contributed to the catastrophic loss of life and property during the deadly flooding.”
“These are the experts responsible for modeling storm impacts, monitoring rising water levels, issuing flood warnings, and coordinating directly with local emergency managers about when to warn the public and issue evacuation orders,” Schumer said in the letter.
Texas Democrat Joaquin Castro expressed concern over the issue in an interview Sunday with CNN.
“When you have flash flooding, there’s a risk that you won’t have the personnel to make that — do that analysis, do the predictions in the best way,” he said.
“And it could lead to tragedy. So, I don’t want to sit here and say conclusively that that was the case, but I do think that it should be investigated,” he said.
Clay Ramsay, a researcher at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, told Xinhua: “The National Weather Service has definitely been under attack by DOGE for months. In the Texas case, those local offices were not in as bad shape as some in other parts of the country, but they did have a couple of supervisors missing.”
He was referring to the Department of Government Efficiency — the group Trump created to cut government jobs he believed were not needed.
The NWS did get the key warnings out in a timely fashion, nonetheless, they predicted an event half the size of what happened. The NWS was also short of a person whose job it was to coordinate NWS warnings with state agencies so they would get passed on, Ramsay noted.
“Trump will find an underling to blame, so I don’t think this event by itself will affect him much. It’s also possible that the MAGA people will stop pressuring the NWS for a while. But the big question is: will there be a similar event every one or two months, so that a pattern becomes clear to the public?” Ramsay said.
Christopher Galdieri, a political science professor at Saint Anselm College, told Xinhua: “The problem Democrats face here is that they don’t control any part of the federal government, so they cannot hold their own oversight hearings, etc.”
“I think this sort of thing helps keep Trump unpopular and motivates Democratic voters and folks thinking about running next year. Depending on how this winds out in Texas it may also affect midterm elections in that state in particular,” Galdieri said.
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
Joao Pedro scored twice against his former club as Chelsea reached the FIFA Club World Cup final on Tuesday with a 2-0 win over Fluminense.
Less than a week after joining Chelsea from Brighton & Hove Albion, Pedro struck either side of halftime to set up a meeting with either Real Madrid or reigning European champions Paris Saint-Germain in Sunday’s final.
The game ended on a worrying note for Chelsea after midfielder Moises Caicedo limped off with an ankle injury.
Both sides began with high intensity at MetLife Stadium despite the temperature reaching 35 degrees Celsius at kickoff.
Chelsea dominated the early stages and got its reward in the 18th minute when Pedro Neto’s cross into the box was cleared straight to Pedro, who curled a shot into the far corner.
Malo Gusto almost doubled the lead moments later, winning a header in the box but directing his effort straight at goalkeeper Fabio.
Fluminense had its best scoring chance of the first half when Hercules beat goalkeeper Robert Sanchez to the ball and fired a shot that was hooked away on the line by Marc Cucurella.
The Brazilian outfit then had a penalty for a Trevoh Chalobah handball overturned after the referee reviewed the incident on the pitchside monitor and ruled the defender’s arm was in a natural position.
Chelsea regained the initiative after halftime as Caicedo and Cucurella both went close with shots from distance.
Pedro scored his team’s second goal in the 56th minute, cutting inside on the counterattack before lashing a drive that bounced in off the underside of the bar.
Fluminense looked deflated as Chelsea continued to press forward in the oppressive conditions.
Gusto’s long-range attempt narrowly missed the top-right corner and substitute Nicolas Jackson sent an angled shot into the side-netting when Cole Palmer was free inside the six-yard box.
Playing against his former club, 40-year-old defender Thiago Silva was arguably Fluminense’s best player, blocking and repelling a number of Chelsea attacks.
His clearing header from a Cucurella cross in the 75th minute almost certainly denied the Premier League club a third goal.
Fluminense pushed to get back into the match but struggled to break down Chelsea’s organized defense. Substitute Keno almost broke the English team’s resistance in the final minutes, steering a header wide after beating Reece James in the air.
Source: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe – OSCE
Headline: OSCE training on arms control enhances border security in Turkmenistan
Opening of an OSCE-organized training course on Combatting Illicit Trafficking of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), Conventional Ammunition (CA) and Explosives, Ashgabat, 4 July 2025, OSCE (OSCE) Photo details
An OSCE-organized training course on Combatting Illicit Trafficking of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), Conventional Ammunition (CA) and Explosives took place from 1 to 4 July 2025 in Ashgabat.
The OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, in close co-operation with the Conflict Prevention Centre/Forum for Security Co-operation of the OSCE Secretariat, organized the course to strengthen the existing institutional capacities of border, customs, police and other law enforcement bodies in the area of combating illicit trafficking of SALW, CA and Explosives.
The training course presented the Frontex Handbook on Firearms and shared European and international good practices and experiences in the fight against illicit trafficking of SALW, ammunition and explosives at the borders. In addition, this course offered comprehensive training in SALW/CA identification, documentation, post-seizure record-keeping and tracing, focusing on the target groups.
In his address at the opening of the training course, William Leaf, Acting Head of the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, said: “As the largest regional security organization in the world, representing one billion people, the OSCE supports all 57 participating States in their efforts to improve comprehensive security through a number of OSCE commitments related to border security and management.”
“Illicit trafficking and uncontrolled spread of SALW, ammunition, and explosives—pose threats across the OSCE region, and the OSCE works with the Organization’s 57 participating States to mitigate these risks,” stressed Leaf.
“As frontline defenders, border and customs officers play a key role in identifying and preventing such threats,” he added.
The course was delivered by international experts from the German Bundeswehr Verification Centre (BwVC), Interpol, and Forum for Security Co-operation of the OSCE Secretariat. Applying concrete example-based exercises, the experts involved trainees in practical exercises that were carefully tailored to control measures at the border crossing points and enhance co-operation between various services at the borders, in particular between border police/ guards and customs.
The training course was organized within the framework of the Centre’s extrabudgetary project “Strengthening State Border Service Capacities of Turkmenistan” and financially supported by the Government of Germany. The training efforts reflect the OSCE’s commitment to significantly supporting the fight against the proliferation of illicit firearms and related threats.
Source: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe – OSCE
Headline: OSCE study visit on Small Arms and Light Weapons strengthens co-operation between Sweden and Ukraine
Ukrainian specialists working on small arms and light weapons (SALW) control during a study visit to the Swedish National Police Force, Stockholm, 26 June 2025. (OSCE) Photo details
From 24 to 26 June 2025, the OSCE’s Conflict Prevention Centre facilitated a study visit to the Swedish National Police Force in Stockholm for Ukrainian specialists working on small arms and light weapons (SALW) control. Participants included representatives from the National Police of Ukraine, State Border Guard Service, State Customs Service and Security Service.
Hosting the visit, Swedish specialists presented their national firearms legislation and shared good practices on border management, detection methods, forensic analysis and investigations of cases of illicit trafficking of SALW. The visit strengthened collaboration and professional relationships between Ukraine and Sweden in firearms control, countering smuggling, and border security.
By enhancing the authorities’ skills and capacities, this initiative boosted the co-ordination efforts within the National Firearms Focal Points and the National Coordination Centre of Ukraine, recently established to strengthen collaboration and improve response to security threats.
The visit was organized under the OSCE’s extrabudgetary project supporting Ukrainian authorities in preventing and combating illicit trafficking in weapons, ammunition, and explosives. It aimed to foster international collaboration and enhance Ukrainian authorities’ expertise in this field.
The Government has activated an Enhanced Task Force Green (ETFG) in response to flooding in the Tasman and Marlborough districts. “Enhanced Task Force Green funding builds on the Government’s commitment to support those impacted by this event,” Minister for Social Development and Employment Louise Upston says. “The recent flooding has been a significant and adverse event damaging farms, homes, roads and bridges. “The ETFG programme puts job seekers to work where they will be of most help to the farmers and growers cleaning up their properties. This may include clearing debris, clearing fence lines and repairing buildings and waterways. “It also provides support to enable public assets such as community halls and gardens, playgrounds and public spaces to be returned to the same condition they were prior to the event. “Across the affected areas, damage assessments are being carried out. The Ministry of Social Development will work with agencies to make sure Enhanced Task Force Green assistance is provided as soon as possible to farmers and growers in need of this support. “We know these are resilient communities which are pulling together to help each other. ETFG is designed to support those efforts and to lend a hand.” Farmers and growers can self-register for clean-up help by contacting the Rural Support Trust on 0800 787 254. Local job seekers available to help with the clean-up effort can register their interest by emailing totsemploymentteam@msd.govt.nz or contacting Work and Income on 0800 559 009.
The Government has activated an Enhanced Task Force Green (ETFG) in response to flooding in the Tasman and Marlborough districts. “Enhanced Task Force Green funding builds on the Government’s commitment to support those impacted by this event,” Minister for Social Development and Employment Louise Upston says. “The recent flooding has been a significant and adverse event damaging farms, homes, roads and bridges. “The ETFG programme puts job seekers to work where they will be of most help to the farmers and growers cleaning up their properties. This may include clearing debris, clearing fence lines and repairing buildings and waterways. “It also provides support to enable public assets such as community halls and gardens, playgrounds and public spaces to be returned to the same condition they were prior to the event. “Across the affected areas, damage assessments are being carried out. The Ministry of Social Development will work with agencies to make sure Enhanced Task Force Green assistance is provided as soon as possible to farmers and growers in need of this support. “We know these are resilient communities which are pulling together to help each other. ETFG is designed to support those efforts and to lend a hand.” Farmers and growers can self-register for clean-up help by contacting the Rural Support Trust on 0800 787 254. Local job seekers available to help with the clean-up effort can register their interest by emailing totsemploymentteam@msd.govt.nz or contacting Work and Income on 0800 559 009.
Junior member Maddison and Life member Phil. Credit: Uniform Photography
Edithvale Fire Brigade recently commemorated a century of service, celebrating the historic milestone with a Centenary Ball.
More than 150 community members gathered on Saturday 28 June to honour the dedication of volunteers who have contributed to the brigade’s legacy.
In the brigade’s formative years, nine community members operated from a community built 30 by 14 foot shed. Now, more than 120 volunteers work from a newly built three-storey station that features a four-bay motor room, female only turnout room, a business hub and a community meeting room.
Edithvale Captain Sean McGuckin has volunteered for more than 20 years and said the celebration was a testament to the resilience and commitment of brigade members past and present.
“We wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for each and every volunteer who’s contributed to the brigade in some capacity,” Sean said.
“I feel proud to be Captain of such an incredible brigade and feel fortunate to lead us through this milestone.”
Each year the brigade attends over 300 fires and emergencies within Edithvale and neighbouring suburbs. Members are highly trained in wildfire and structural firefighting, with 26 members also qualified in Emergency Medical Response (EMR).
“Fires aren’t the only emergencies we face. We respond to high angle rescues, missing persons reports and even drownings because we have the training and resources to do so,” Sean said.
“We are also well-equipped with the addition of our Mobile Command Unit and Remote Piloted Aircraft Systems that allow us to help in more ways than one.”
“These additions mean we can be deployed to assist in incident command and control for any emergency service in Victoria and interstate.”
Sean also highlighted the brigade’s inclusive and committed membership base.
“We are very grateful to have a diverse and thriving member base, with one of the highest numbers of female volunteers in the state,” Sean said.
“It feels good being amongst a group of people who want to be as involved with the brigade as possible.”
“Every time a pager goes off or an event pops up, triple the members that are needed show up.”
As Edithvale enters its second century, brigade members are committed as ever to protecting the community with the same passion and dedication that shaped its first hundred years.
Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
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Jul 9, 2025 0100 UTC Day 1 Convective Outlook
Updated: Wed Jul 9 00:52:40 UTC 2025 (Print Version | | )
Probabilistic to Categorical Outlook Conversion Table
Forecast Discussion
SPC AC 090052
Day 1 Convective Outlook NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK 0752 PM CDT Tue Jul 08 2025
Valid 090100Z – 091200Z
…THERE IS A MARGINAL RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS PARTS OF THE MID-ATLANTIC/SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND AND THE CENTRAL/SOUTHERN PLAINS…
…SUMMARY… Isolated strong to severe thunderstorms should continue this evening across parts of the central/southern Plains and Mid-Atlantic into southern New England.
…Mid-Atlantic/Southern New England… Bands of loosely organized convection will continue to spread eastward across the DelMarVa Peninsula and southeast VA/northeast NC vicinity over the next couple of hours this evening. A sufficiently moist and unstable airmass should support occasional severe/damaging winds with this activity until it moves offshore or eventually weakens with the loss of daytime heating.
…Central/Southern Plains… Widely spaced strong to severe thunderstorms are present this evening across the central/southern Plains, generally along/south of a convectively reinforced boundary extending across KS into the Ozarks. Large-scale forcing across these regions will tend to remain weak on the northeast periphery of the upper ridge centered over the Southwest. But, multiple low-amplitude mid-level perturbations should aid in thunderstorm maintenance for several more hours this evening given the presence of moderate to strong instability and marginally sufficient deep-layer shear for updraft organization. Isolated severe winds and hail may occur with loosely organized multicells and occasional supercells. But, the overall severe threat still appears too unfocused/widely spaced to include greater severe probabilities.
..Gleason.. 07/09/2025
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Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
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Jul 9, 2025 0100 UTC Day 1 Convective Outlook
Updated: Wed Jul 9 00:52:40 UTC 2025 (Print Version | | )
Probabilistic to Categorical Outlook Conversion Table
Forecast Discussion
SPC AC 090052
Day 1 Convective Outlook NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK 0752 PM CDT Tue Jul 08 2025
Valid 090100Z – 091200Z
…THERE IS A MARGINAL RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS PARTS OF THE MID-ATLANTIC/SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND AND THE CENTRAL/SOUTHERN PLAINS…
…SUMMARY… Isolated strong to severe thunderstorms should continue this evening across parts of the central/southern Plains and Mid-Atlantic into southern New England.
…Mid-Atlantic/Southern New England… Bands of loosely organized convection will continue to spread eastward across the DelMarVa Peninsula and southeast VA/northeast NC vicinity over the next couple of hours this evening. A sufficiently moist and unstable airmass should support occasional severe/damaging winds with this activity until it moves offshore or eventually weakens with the loss of daytime heating.
…Central/Southern Plains… Widely spaced strong to severe thunderstorms are present this evening across the central/southern Plains, generally along/south of a convectively reinforced boundary extending across KS into the Ozarks. Large-scale forcing across these regions will tend to remain weak on the northeast periphery of the upper ridge centered over the Southwest. But, multiple low-amplitude mid-level perturbations should aid in thunderstorm maintenance for several more hours this evening given the presence of moderate to strong instability and marginally sufficient deep-layer shear for updraft organization. Isolated severe winds and hail may occur with loosely organized multicells and occasional supercells. But, the overall severe threat still appears too unfocused/widely spaced to include greater severe probabilities.
..Gleason.. 07/09/2025
CLICK TO GET WUUS01 PTSDY1 PRODUCT
.html”>Latest Day 2 Outlook/Today’s Outlooks/Forecast Products/Home
ALEM, Oregon— The work to prepare Oregon’s more than 250 state parks and campgrounds for the 2025 season has been going all year long.
Behind the scenes, park rangers have moved mountains of sand, cleared thousands of downed trees and repaired roofs, bridges and trails around the state to keep parks well maintained and ready for visitors.
Visitors might think that parks stay pristine because they look just like they left them, but maintaining beautiful landscapes in some of Oregon’s harshest climates takes some work:
Cape Lookout State Park cleared more than 1.5 million pounds of sand after winter winds buried one camp loop in six-inch drifts. The park is not alone. Many coastal parks must dig out campsites, sidewalks and parking lots after the winter season.
Devil’s Lake State Recreation Area removed a dump truck load of slime, algae, branches, leaves and trash, which coated the campground when the lake receded. The lake floods every year, and rangers clean up the muck left behind.
In the Mountain Region and other areas where it freezes, rangers reinstall plumbing components and restart the plumbing to the campgrounds, buildings and picnic shelters, which includes restarting water to thousands of campsite spigots.
At Fall Creek State Recreation Area east of Eugene, rangers cleared eight dump truck loads of fir needles, cones, branches and debris to make the roads passable at Winberry Park when it reopened this spring.
Nehalem Bay State Park cleared nearly 180 downed trees in one winter storm alone. Parks across the state repaired winter storm damage, including clearing downed trees, repairing roads, fixing roofs and mending bridges.
In the Columbia River Gorge, parks cleared thousands of pounds of woody debris from paved trails and created wood chips to spread around trees and shrubs.
Overall, Oregon State Parks rangers spend nearly 800,000 hours a year cleaning bathrooms, building and repairing trails and bridges, fixing old and new pipes and wiring, keeping parks safe, preserving Oregon’s history and natural resources and sharing knowledge on everything from mushrooms to the night sky.
“Rangers work tirelessly to keep these landscapes beautiful and accessible for the approximately 56 million visits each year at Oregon State Parks. We’re thankful for the work they do every day,” said Oregon Governor Tina Kotek.
Oregon State Parks welcome as many as 17,000 guests on the busiest nights, which means moving a city roughly the size of Canby in and out of campgrounds on almost a daily basis statewide.
“Oregon State Parks are like small cities. They run sewer, water and electrical systems; maintain roads and structures, all while managing campgrounds. When one system goes down, our staff manage the necessary emergency repairs to keep parks open. I’m proud of the work they do to keep parks safe, welcoming and ready for everyone to enjoy,” said Oregon Parks and Recreation Director Lisa Sumption.
Help rangers this season by following all safety signs and barriers; staying on trail and checking campfire restrictions in advance at stateparks.oregon.gov. Interested in what rangers do? Check out the Oregon State Parks episode of “Odd Jobs” by SAIF Corporation at https://youtu.be/NUqCmEe38Uw?feature=shared
Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News
East China’s Zhejiang Province has evacuated more than 71,000 residents from high-risk areas as Typhoon Danas nears.
At 2 p.m. Tuesday, Danas was 118 km east of Wenzhou City, moving at a speed of 10 km per hour westward, according to the Zhejiang Meteorological Observatory.
The provincial authorities have enacted comprehensive safety protocols, including suspending 118 ferry routes, grounding 577 pleasure boats and canceling 372 rail services. Attractions and high-risk tourism activities have been closed. Emergency teams have been deployed to 12 geological hazard zones in the cities of Wenzhou, Taizhou, and Lishui.
Approximately 57,000 emergency rescue personnel across the province have been mobilized as standbys, according to the provincial emergency management department.
Federated Farmers is calling on Kiwis to get in behind flood-affected farming families at the top of the South Island, as recovery efforts ramp up and the scale of the damage becomes clearer.
President Wayne Langford visited the area on Monday July 7 and says the destruction in parts of Nelson and Tasman is extensive, with some farms totally unrecognisable.
“I drove back up through the Motueka River and you can just see where it’s come through and swallowed everything in its path. It’s total devastation,” he says.
“One farm I visited had about 50 hectares taken out. The river changed course and just chewed right through it. Orchards nearby got absolutely smoked as well.”
Langford says it’s clear some properties have been hit far worse than others – and that those farmers urgently need our support.
“The damage can really vary. Some places have just lost boundary fences, but others have lost entire blocks. I met a guy who has lost a quarter of his farm.
“It’s heartbreaking to see, and the real kicker is that the worst of the damage is to farms right by the river – which are also some of our most productive.”
He says it’s now time for the rest of the farming community to do what we do best in times of adversity – to get in behind these families and show them some support.
“We know what to do in these situations. The Rural Support Trust is doing good work on the ground, and local volunteers are already rolling up their sleeves.
“For people who really want to help, the best thing they can do is donate to the Farmers Adverse Events Trust. That’s the best way to get the support to where it’s needed most.”
The trust is designed to get funding directly to farmers who have suffered extraordinary loss – not just business-as-usual setbacks, Langford says.
