ALBANY, NEW YORK – James Alvin Boone, II, age 30, of Schenectady, New York, pled guilty today to possession of fentanyl and cocaine with intent to distribute, distribution of fentanyl, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman and Frank A. Tarentino, III, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), New York Division, made the announcement.
Boone admitted that: he and another person conspired to distribute fentanyl and cocaine throughout the Capital Region; he directed his co-conspirator to store over 25,000 fentanyl pills weighing over 3 kilograms, two handguns, ammunition, and several hundred grams of cocaine in a storage unit and at her home; he personally distributed fentanyl and directed his co-conspirator to do the same; and, before this conspiracy, he personally possessed over 1.4 kilograms of cocaine and a pistol in a safe in his home on July 28, 2023. Law enforcement seized these narcotics, firearms, and ammunition from Boone and his co-conspirator in its investigation. Boone also admitted that after his arrest, he instructed another individual to dispose of additional fentanyl pills.
Boone faces a minimum term of 15 years and up to life in prison, and a term of post-imprisonment supervised release of at least 5 years and up to life. He will be sentenced on May 30, 2025, by United States District Judge Anne M. Nardacci. A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the particular statutes the defendant is charged with violating, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, and other factors.
The DEA investigated the case with assistance from the Colonie Police Department, Schenectady Police Department, and New York State Police. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mikayla Espinosa is prosecuting the case.
Headline: Panasonic Well Venturing into the Future of Family Wellness
Yoky Matsuoka, Executive Officer of Panasonic Holdings Corporation and Panasonic Well Director, took the stage with Yuki Kusumi, Group CEO, during the opening keynote at CES 2025. She announced that Umi, a holistic digital family wellness platform and coach, will be launched in the US as an example of Panasonic Go.*1 We interviewed Yoky about Panasonic Well, the vision to commercializing Umi, and the outlook for the future.
＊1: A global corporate growth initiative promoting business transformation using AI.
Integration of wellness and technologies: Panasonic Well taking up challenges
Panasonic Well, led by Yoky, is a venture and business incubator committed to building new services and technologies that improve the well-being of all people, with a focus on the wellness of modern families. Yoky is an accomplished executive and technologist with over two decades of leadership experience. She is a renowned robotics and neuroscience expert, recognized for her groundbreaking work and honored with the MacArthur Genius Award.
Yoky: Partly due to my past experiences, Panasonic Well tends to be seen as simply a developer of AI or technologies. However, we are able to create solutions at the intersection of responsible tech and human care because we understand what is needed to achieve wellness. This is Panasonic Well’s strength.
Yoky Matsuoka and Panasonic Well staff (at the CES 2025 Panasonic booth)
The first project that Yoky initiated at Panasonic was Yohana, a next-generation family concierge service.
Yoky: During the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s work styles and how they spent time with their family saw drastic changes. At that time, we conducted surveys to get a deeper look at the challenges underlying their problems and did exhaustive research on how we could develop relevant solutions. We launched Yohana in 2021 in the US, then later in Japan, to respond to the time-consuming needs of families by proposing suggestions for meal menus, birthday presents, and so on. The Yohana team, composed of actual humans, has completed over 300,000 tasks on behalf of our customers. This work accumulated to a total of more than one million hours for our customers’ time, which we were able to give back to them. However, we have been unable to provide adequate solutions for using the time created by Yohana to strengthen family ties or improve self-care.
At Panasonic Well, we have continued our research to ensure that AI will be able to resolve challenges facing families in the future. Furthermore, a survey*2 conducted in the US revealed that half of the “sandwich generation”*3 parents, including myself, feel overwhelmed by stress and that 65% feel lonely. This shows that strengthening family ties and self-care are indispensable for the elderly. Consequently, we developed Umi*4 to address these crises in family ｗell-being.
＊2: U.S. Surgeon General Issues Advisory on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Parents (August 2024).＊3: A generation simultaneously supporting aging parents while raising children.＊4: The word “umi” means ocean in Japanese. This name was chosen because it evokes an image of health and well-being, since it not only has a calming effect but also gives people the feeling of vastness and the availability of unlimited resources.
Umi: A new AI partner supporting family wellness
Yoky: Umi will start by providing an app as a family well-being coach that facilitates behavioral changes toward achieving family wellness. By encouraging multi-generation families to cultivate wellness habits that fit their diverse needs and lifestyles, it can be a family partner that supports their health and well-being. Activities & fitness, nutrition, sleep, and stress management are essential for wellness, and among these, the first two have been increasingly attracting attention in recent years. Accordingly, Umi’s AI agent assists in behavioral changes for all family members from their childhood, especially in the areas of activities & fitness and nutrition.
From the video shown during the keynote. Left: Umi suggests ideas for enjoying a weekend, and family members exchange opinions.
Right: Umi explains key points of communication with elderly parents based on advice from experts.
Specifically, using wide-ranging data learned through questions and communications with family members, Umi’s AI sets personalized goals for individuals and suggests necessary actions to meet these goals while considering their feasibility. For example, Umi may propose a monthly target number of steps for a user, but if it learns through conversations that it is not feasible due to the user’s busy schedule, Umi may set another more achievable target for eating more nutritious meals. Since the priorities of activities & fitness and nutrition vary among individuals, it is essential to tailor this process for each family member.
One of Umi’s features enables all family members including children to share conversations, not only 1-to-1 communication. This coordinates family wellness through communication and eventually leads to behavioral change. We delve deeply into the app features like tone of voice and tweak between strong and soft tones to make suggestions best suited for encouraging behavioral changes. Umi also visualizes your progress and enables you to review the outcomes to establish actions as routines.
Panasonic Well: Committed to building a wellness ecosystem
Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan, CEO of AARP
During the keynote, Yoky introduced the Panasonic Well Partner Collective, which consists of leading health and wellness businesses, organizations, and research institutions, as well as a partnership with the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP),*5 an NPO with approximately forty million members in the US. Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan, CEO of AARP, took the stage and emphasized that technology is critical to living a healthy life for an increasing number of older people and their families around the world. Yoky also introduced the Family Wellness Innovation Challenge, a global competition co-sponsored by AARP and Panasonic Well for start-ups who pursue relevant technologies and services, and the prize winners were announced at the end.
＊5: Aiming at improving the quality of life of older people, AARP provides information and support related to health, economic, and social challenges.
Yoky: During the development of Umi, we placed much emphasis on building a business ecosystem.*6 Typical examples are partnerships with companies that provide services as needed or those that give expert advice based on the communications carried out between users and Umi.
＊6: A large economic network of various companies and organizations that collaborate to create greater value.
Group CEO Kusumi joined the award ceremony of the Family Wellness Innovation Challenge and praised the grand prix winner.
The sandwich generation is under a great deal of emotional, time, and economic pressure, and more than half of the families in the US face these burdens.*7 Partnerships are critical for resolving such issues. The Family Wellness Innovation Challenge is a significant step toward expanding such partnerships. We received over 550 applications from around the world, including Japan. I joined the latter half of the screening process myself and interviewed applicants in person. We announced the winners at CES partly to find partners who align with our initiatives, and many participants actually approached us demonstrating their interest. By taking this opportunity, we want to further expand the ecosystem and respond to a wider range of use cases.
＊7: World Economic Forum “More than half of Americans in their 40s are ‘sandwiched’ between an aging parent and their own children” (April 2022).
Daniela Amodei, Co-founder and President of Anthropic
Since collaboration with AI partners is indispensable in promoting Panasonic Go, Group CEO Kusumi announced in his keynote a strategic partnership with Anthropic in the US, a company that shares the Panasonic Group’s belief that AI must be safe, understandable, and designed to deeply align with human values. In response, Yoky stated that Umi will be equipped with Anthropic’s Claude AI assistant. Daniela Amodei, Co-founder and President of Anthropic, joined her and explained that Claude has added value in all aspects of business, from customer service to decision-making, over the years. She expressed her determination to help the Panasonic Group enhance its overall creativity while delivering better business results by leveraging Claude’s high reliability and safety.
Yoky: Anthropic has grown while placing great emphasis on ethics, privacy, and responsibility, and its large language models (LLMs) have gained a high reputation in the US. Umi, committed to supporting the health and well-being for all with wellness as a gateway, cannot be viable without innovations based on Anthropic’s AI ethics. Anthropic AI is particularly excellent at family calendar management and chat promotion, so we will be able to provide a service where Umi discusses the scheduling of hospital visits with users, prepares and manages their schedule with AI, and then even reserves a taxi. We expect further collaboration with a diverse range of partners by expanding the breadth of services in this way.
Umi and Panasonic Well’s future strategy
Yoky: I feel that being able to demonstrate Umi’s capabilities at CES was very meaningful. Umi’s first key vision for the future is to provide a one-stop solution. We hope to develop Umi into a platform that knows all family members well, capable of making good suggestions in response to their wellness consultations without the need to access different sources.
The Umi booth at CES 2025, where many visitors attentively listened to the explanations of booth staff while trying out screen demonstrations
In front of the Partner Collective panel displays. Quite a few representatives of companies expressed their support and consulted with staff of Panasonic Well.
The second vision is to strengthen the ecosystem by expanding our network of partnerships. We will select partners based on their attitudes toward AI ethics and customer needs. We hope that more companies and organizations will participate in the Umi ecosystem in the future, even if their various services overlap. We believe that optimal solutions for problems and concerns can be provided to more customers only when Umi is backed up by a diverse range of partners.
Umi will launch services from the US while aiming to establish a global ecosystem to ensure deployment in other countries and regions. The Panasonic Group is unrivaled in its touchpoints with customers in households and it is important to leverage this advantage. We, as the provider of Umi, look forward to collaborating closely with the business divisions to identify mutually beneficial approaches to solve our customer pain points.
While Panasonic Well is a company capable of making customers around the world healthy and happy through wellness solutions, we want to be the forerunner that will lead Panasonic Go, an initiative to promote corporate transformation of Panasonic. We will pioneer the creation of new products and businesses by leveraging AI and other advanced technologies. We will also establish AI platforms in collaboration with partners and our operating companies.
Furthermore, we are conscious of our contributions to the AI-based transformation of the entire Panasonic Group. In addition to promoting teamwork with departments in charge of AI at Panasonic Holdings and other organizations, we will provide inspiration and lead initiatives to encourage every Panasonic Group employee to embrace AI, unleashing tremendous progress in their tasks and in the products and services they develop.
Panasonic Go aims to expand AI-driven hardware, software, and solutions businesses to approximately 30% of the Panasonic Group’s revenue by 2035. However, the Panasonic Group won’t be able to meet the goal only through the efforts of Panasonic Well and Blue Yonder. All business divisions and departments across the Panasonic Group need to create AI-driven revenue streams. We at Panasonic Well hope to contribute to the attainment of our goal by implementing the approaches I’ve described. If we succeed in meeting our goal, the day may come when the entire Panasonic Group is regarded as a leader in AI technologies.
Under Yoky’s leadership, Panasonic Well will continue to provide innovative solutions driven by AI and other advanced technologies, thus contributing to family wellness. It will also promote AI use throughout the Panasonic Group’s businesses and work at the forefront of Panasonic Go.
The content in this website is accurate at the time of publication but may be subject to change without notice.Please note therefore that these documents may not always contain the most up-to-date information.Please note that German, French and Chinese versions are machine translations, so the quality and accuracy may vary.
Addressing fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA) remains a significant challenge of maintaining the efficiency and effectiveness of health care systems. This report explores the complexities of identifying and managing FWA within health systems, drawing on extensive quantitative and qualitative research conducted from April 2023 to March 2024. The findings highlight the necessity of robust government actions, advanced analytics, and innovative technology to detect and manage FWA effectively.
A los pueblos les asiste el derecho a decidir su propio destino colectivo según lo estableció la Conferencia de Bandung en 1955 y el Pacto Internacional de Derechos Civiles y Políticos de 1966, lo cual no fue gratuito, sino producto de la lucha de los países periféricos por su descolonización. Ante esta realidad, Estados Unidos nunca renunció a extender la doctrina Monroe hasta el presente. Empeorando la situación, el irredentismo imperial con el presidente Donald Trump se hace explícito. La desconfianza de la población hacia la élite política en esta coyuntura se está reproduciendo en el imaginario colectivo en un marcado desinterés por el irredentismo imperial de Trump. Esto último, busca la anexión y recuperación de territorios, aunque no compartan fronteras, como el caso de Groenlandia y Panamá. Y, no se trata del capricho de una persona, en este caso Trump, sino de una racionalidad imperial.
Ante las amenazas de Trump de anexarse territorios, recuperar otros, como el Canal de Panamá y, ultrajar a países como Canada, Colombia, México, Cuba y Venezuela con falacias y sanciones, una vía para resistir es la organización de los pueblos y la puesta en marcha de una agenda en común cuyo contenido sea la autodeterminación de los pueblos, la integración regional y la unidad nacional popular. La élite política panameña no necesariamente va a defender los más caros intereses del pueblo. Estados Unidos es nuestro principal socio comercial y con el coloso del Norte mantenemos una relación de dependencia. Nuestra élite es cipaya en esa conjunción. Lo demuestra cada vez que puede, con la soga al cuello patea el banco. Recientemente ante el altercado en redes sociales entre los presidentes Gustavo Petro y Trump, el Gobierno de la República de Honduras, ocupando la presidencia Pro Tempore de la CELAC, convocó a una reunión urgente para atender la situación, pero fue cancelada por “falta de consenso” (https://surl.li/ctjijs).
En el caso particular de Panamá, las élites políticas panameñas tienen más de un siglo negociando con los estadounidenses en beneficio propio. Al pueblo le tocará organizarse para garantizar los suyos, así como lo hizo el 9 de enero de 1964. Los intereses del pueblo no necesariamente son los mismos de la élite, aunque por momentos puedan coincidir. El problema de fondo no es Trump, sino, el irredentismo imperial. Hoy es Trump, mañana será otro presidente y, en el fondo, subyace esa racionalidad irredentista. Por lo tanto, es necesario diseñar mecanismos de defensa y resistencia, táctica y estratégicamente. Es imperativo enrumbar las acciones hacia una correlación regional de fuerza distinta en función de la unidad latinoamericana hasta la constitución de un nuevo “bloque histórico” como diría Gramsci.
Siguiendo con el espíritu irredentista expresado por el presidente Trump en su red social Truth Social y, en su discurso presidencial, la Comisión Marítima Federal de los Estados Unidos convocó a una audiencia para discutir la supuesta presencia China en el Canal. El internacionalista Julio Yao hizo un análisis de la resolución de la Comisión y concluye con la necesidad de consultar a la Corte Internacional de Justicia si las peticiones de Estados Unidos no constituyen una violación al derecho internacional. Peticiones a todas luces injerencistas. En particular: “EE. UU. no puede instar a Panamá “a reafirmar su compromiso con el Tratado de Neutralidad permanente del Canal”, ya que Panamá lo ha hecho siempre, contrario a EE. UU. que lo ha violado cada vez y exclusivamente para satisfacer sus intereses de seguridad para sus fuerzas armadas” (https://surl.li/mwpuos).
Ese es el argumento de fondo del irredentismo imperial, invocar el Tratado Concerniente a la Neutralidad Permanente del Canal y el Funcionamiento del Canal de Panamá, en particular la Enmienda DeConcini: la cual posibilita que Estados Unidos “pueda tomar medidas militares en suelo panameño sin el consentimiento del Gobierno de Panamá” (https://surl.li/kvxhkh). Para justificar esta acción han recurrido a falacias sobre la presencia China en Panamá hasta la cantidad de muertos en la construcción del Canal por los estadounidenses en 1914. El historiador y diplomático Omar Jaén Suarez aclaró este último punto en uno de sus recientes artículos, “La mortalidad durante la construcción del Canal interoceánico […] entre 1904 y 1914, sólo hay 350 estadounidenses (6 %) según la Comisión del Canal Ístmico, mientras que los empleados afroantillanos muertos fueron 4.049 (72 %) […] los datos no señalan más de 6.280 muertes entre los empleados de las compañías del canal francés desde 1881 hasta 1903” (https://surl.li/kybccq). Y, así sucesivamente el irredentismo imperial se sostiene sobre falacias para justificar su interés de recuperar el Canal.
Como señala Greg Grandin, profesor en Yale, en un reciente artículo en el New York Times: el “lenguaje desinhibido [que utiliza Trump] aumenta la volatilidad de un mundo ya de por sí volátil” (https://surl.li/oziinq), esa táctica de choque, en la cual una de sus principales armas son las redes sociales, busca desestabilizar para alcanzar sus objetivos. En última instancia, MAGA (Make America Great Again) es su sueño por “un nuevo imperio estadounidense”, como lo planteó Grandin. Para ese cometido, necesitará doblegar aún más a sus ya arrodillados socios. Allí cobra importancia las posiciones antiimperialistas y descolonizadoras, cuando ya muchos la daban por muertas. No se trata de sacar una bandera panameña a última hora e invocar un patriotismo abstracto; a diferencia del pueblo panameño consciente y organizado de su historia de lucha, que recuerda a sus mártires de la lucha generacional por la recuperación de nuestra soberanía.
En esa misma línea de Grandin, el abogado y académico panameño Alonso Illueca, escribió en el El País: “Parado sobre una tradición sepultada a mediados del siglo XX, Trump relanzó el pasado 20 de enero de 2025 la política expansionista del destino manifiesto y la doctrina Monroe” (https://surl.li/zzqzdx), en detrimento nuestro, particularmente por sus “criterios” en torno al manejo del Canal; pero, también como policía del mundo, inicia una cruzada contra la izquierda como en los grises días de la guerra fría. No es casualidad que los presidentes en la asunción de Trump tengan algo en común: odian a la izquierda. Su toma de posesión fue un retrato a cuerpo entero, rodeado de los milmillonarios magnates de la tecnología. Veremos un despliegue del fetichismo del capitalismo digital, hostigamiento hacia las izquierdas y contra defensores de Derechos Humanos.
No vemos a una élite política defendiendo los más caros intereses del pueblo panameño ante la afrenta imperial, en cambio sí sus privilegios. La unidad popular no es otra cosa que la unidad en base a intereses colectivos. Sin la autodeterminación de los pueblos, la integración regional y la unidad nacional popular sobre la mesa, el patriotismo abstracto de la élite política negociará sus privilegios en el marco del irredentismo imperial.
Photo credit: Pedro Silva
Abdiel Rodríguez Reyes esDoctor en filosofía por la Universidad del País Vasco y profesor e investigador en la Universidad de Panamá
Source: Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
This is a joint media release between the AFP, National Anti-Scam Centre, Philippines Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission and National Bureau of Investigation
Authorities have texted more than 5000 potential victims in Australia to warn they may have been targeted by romance scammers based in the Philippines.
The National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC), in partnership with the AFP-led Joint Policing Cybercrime Collaboration Centre (JPC3), has today texted potential victims, who are mostly male, urging them not to send money to people they’ve met online and outlined next steps to take if they have already sent money to the scammers.
More than 300 computer towers, 1000 mobile phones, and thousands of SIM cards were located by Philippines authorities and evidence gathered during the investigation has been shared with international law enforcement partners to help identify potential victims, including those who may not be aware they have been targeted.
Under Operation Firestorm, the JPC3 identified more than 5000 Australian-based phone numbers linked to messages found on an end-to-end encryption platform on the devices.
Operation Firestorm is a global operation launched by the JPC3 in August 2024, to address and disrupt offshore organised crime networks deceiving Australians through romance, cryptocurrency and investment scams.
The significant amount of technology located during the operation required extensive analysis, and JPC3 technical and cryptocurrency experts spent hundreds of hours extracting crucial evidence.
It is alleged the scammers, using popular online dating apps, tricked victims into a fake online romantic relationship, before convincing them to purchase legitimate cryptocurrency. They would request a minimum first investment between AUD $300 – $800 dollars, before encouraging the victim to invest more money.
The suspected scammer would then deceive the victim into transferring funds from the legitimate crypto exchange account into the scammer’s account.
Most of the Australian victims targeted were men over 35. The fraudsters posed as either a Filipino female working in Australia or a local female resident in the Philippines.
The investigation has so far resulted in the arrest of more than 250 suspects by Philippine law enforcement authorities.
AFP Commander Cybercrime Operations Graeme Marshall said the investigation highlighted the importance of international partnerships in disrupting serious organised cybercrime networks while supporting victims.
“The AFP worked closely with our partners, the National Anti-Scam Centre and Philippines Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission and the National Bureau of Investigation, to ensure Australians targeted by this malicious scam were identified and given advice to help protect themselves online,” AFP Cmdr Marshall said.
“We urge anyone who received a text message warning from the National Anti-Scam Centre to take it very seriously and refrain from sending money to people you’ve met online.
“If you have already sent someone money or cryptocurrency, please report it to your bank immediately, then to police via ReportCyber. To help others avoid similar scams, you can also report it to ScamWatch.
“When it comes to romance scams, our message to the public is simple: protect your heart and your wallet. If it feels too good to be true, it probably is.
“There are many warning signs someone you’ve met online could be trying to scam you. In this case, the scammer would ask to move the conversation from an online dating app to an end-to-end encryption messaging platform.
“Cybercriminals commonly use this technique to protect themselves from being reported and removed from online dating or social media platforms.
“We urge the public to familiarise themselves with the warning signs of romance scams to help protect themselves, loved ones, friends and family when interacting with people online.”
Australian Competition & Consumer Commission Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe said in 2024, Australians reported losing $23.6 million to dating and romance scams.
“Romance scammers prey on people seeking connection. Criminals build trust over time and often abuse this trust by encouraging people to make large investments leaving victims with significant financial losses and emotional distress,” Ms Lowe said.
“We encourage people to always independently verify any investment opportunity via trusted sources such as an Australian registered financial advisor.”
How to stop, check and protect yourself from romance scams
Never send money or cryptocurrency to anyone you’ve met online. Be sceptical of any requests for money, no matter how genuine the story may seem.
Verify the person’s identity. Take things slow and be wary if their story doesn’t add up or if they refuse to video chat or meet in person. Conduct reverse image searches on their profile pictures at https://images.google.com.
Beware of overly affectionate behaviour. If someone you’ve just met online starts professing love quickly, it’s a red flag.
Be careful of what you share. Never disclose personal information or send intimate photos to people you don’t know as this may be used to blackmail you or steal your identity.
What to do if you’re a victim of a scam
Stop all communication with the scammer
Take screenshots of conversations and profiles before blocking the scammer on all platforms.
Contact your bank if you have transferred money or suspect unusual account activity.
Report suspected scams to www.scamwatch.gov.au to help others avoid similar scams.
If you were contacted via social media, report it to the social media platform.
Use strong, unique passphrases on your accounts and enable Multi-Factor Authentication wherever possible.
If you are concerned your identity has been compromised, contact the national identity and cyber support service, IDCARE, at www.idcare.org.
If you, or someone you know needs help, we encourage you to contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636, who provide 24/7 support services.
The JPC3 brings together Australian law enforcement and key industry and international partners to fight cybercrime and prevent harm and financial loss to the Australian community.
We are committed to equipping all Australians with the knowledge and resources to protect themselves against cybercrime.
Sipekne’katik RCMP is asking for the public’s assistance in locating 48-year-old Jerome Patrick Paul who was last seen in Sipekne’katik (Indian Brook).
Paulis described as 5-foot-8 and 200 pounds. He has short dark brown hair, brown eyes and is known to wear glasses. Paul is believed to be wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants.
At this time, investigators believe that Paul may be driving a dark blue Chevrolet cargo van with the rear passenger window smashed out.
When someone goes missing, it has deep and far-reaching impacts for the person and those who know them. We ask that people spread the word through social media respectfully.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Jerome Patrick Paul is asked to contact the Indian Brook RCMP detachment at 902-758-3388. To remain anonymous, call Nova Scotia Crime Stoppers, toll-free, at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), submit a secure web tip atwww.crimestoppers.ns.ca, or use the P3 Tips app.
TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Mount Logan Capital Inc. (Cboe Canada: MLC) (“Mount Logan” or the “Company”) today announced it has successfully completed its previously announced minority investment in Runway Growth Capital LLC (“Runway”), alongside BC Partners and its affiliates, which are acquiring the remaining outstanding ownership in Runway. On closing, Mount Logan issued to former Runway members an aggregate of 2,693,071 common shares of Mount Logan at a deemed price of C$2.67, which was determined based on the 20-day volume-weighted average price prior to and including January 27, 2025.
With approval of a new investment advisory agreement, Runway will continue to serve as investment adviser to its managed funds, including Runway Growth Finance Corp. (Nasdaq: RWAY) (“Runway Growth Finance”), a business development company, and to other private funds. Mount Logan looks forward to working with BC Partners and Runway’s management and investment teams to capitalize on the opportunities available in the North American credit markets.
Management Commentary
Ted Goldthorpe, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Mount Logan, stated, “We are thrilled to officially welcome David and the talented team at Runway to the Mount Logan family. We are excited about partnering with the Runway team to scale their specialized capabilities in providing financing solutions to late-stage growth platforms. Since the announcement, we have already seen significant benefits of our alignment with the Runway team. Runway’s expertise enhances our credit capabilities, and we are confident in our ability to leverage their strong investment acumen to expand our product suite and further diversify our private credit fund offerings.”
Advisors
Wildeboer Dellelce LLP acted as Canadian legal counsel to Mount Logan. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP acted as legal counsel to BC Partners. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Runway Growth Capital LLC. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz acted as legal counsel to Runway Growth Capital LLC and Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP acted as legal counsel to the independent directors of Runway Growth Finance.
About Mount Logan Capital Inc.
Mount Logan Capital Inc. is an alternative asset management and insurance solutions company that is focused on public and private debt securities in the North American market and the reinsurance of annuity products, primarily through its wholly owned subsidiaries Mount Logan Management LLC (“ML Management”) and Ability Insurance Company (“Ability”), respectively. Mount Logan also actively sources, evaluates, underwrites, manages, monitors and primarily invests in loans, debt securities, and other credit-oriented instruments that present attractive risk-adjusted returns and present low risk of principal impairment through the credit cycle.
ML Management was organized in 2020 as a Delaware limited liability company and is registered with the SEC as an investment adviser under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended. The primary business of ML Management is to provide investment management services to (i) privately offered investment funds exempt from registration under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the “1940 Act”) advised by ML Management, (ii) a non-diversified closed-end management investment company that has elected to be regulated as a business development company, (iii) Ability, and (iv) non-diversified closed-end management investment companies registered under the 1940 Act that operate as interval funds. ML Management also acts as the collateral manager to collateralized loan obligations backed by debt obligations and similar assets.
Ability is a Nebraska domiciled insurer and reinsurer of long-term care policies and annuity products acquired by Mount Logan in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021. Ability is also no longer insuring or re-insuring new long-term care risk.
About Runway Growth Capital LLC
Runway Growth Capital LLC is the investment adviser to investment funds, including Runway Growth Finance Corp. (Nasdaq: RWAY), a business development company, and other private funds, which are lenders of growth capital to companies seeking an alternative to raising equity. Led by industry veteran David Spreng, these funds provide senior term loans of a target of $30 million to $150 million to fast-growing companies based in the United States and Canada. For more information on Runway Growth Capital LLC and its platform, please visit www.runwaygrowth.com.
About Runway Growth Finance Corp.
Runway Growth Finance is a growing specialty finance company focused on providing flexible capital solutions to late- and growth-stage companies seeking an alternative to raising equity. Runway Growth Finance is a closed-end investment fund that has elected to be regulated as a business development company under the Investment Company Act of 1940. Runway Growth Finance is externally managed by Runway Growth Capital LLC, an established registered investment advisor that was formed in 2015 and led by industry veteran David Spreng. For more information, please visit www.runwaygrowth.com.
About BC Partners & BC Partners Credit
BC Partners is a leading international investment firm in private equity, private debt, and real estate strategies. BC Partners Credit was launched in February 2017, with a focus on identifying attractive credit opportunities in any market environment, often in complex market segments. The platform leverages the broader firm’s deep industry and operating resources to provide flexible financing solutions to middle-market companies across Business Services, Industrials, Healthcare and other select sectors. For further information, visit www.bcpartners.com/credit-strategy.
This press release contains forward-looking statements and information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the expressions “seeks”, “expects”, “believes”, “estimates”, “will”, “target” and similar expressions. The forward-looking statements are not historical facts but reflect the current expectations of the Company regarding future results or events and are based on information currently available to it. Certain material factors and assumptions were applied in providing these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements discussed in this release include, but are not limited to, statements relating to the Company’s business strategy, model, approach and future activities; portfolio composition, size and performance, asset management activities and related income, capital raising activities, future credit opportunities of the Company, portfolio realizations, the protection of stakeholder value, the expansion of the Company’s loan portfolio, including through its investment in Runway, synergies to be achieved by both the Company and Runway through the Company’s strategic minority investment, any future growth and expansion of each of both the Company and Runway, any change in earnings potential for the Company as a result of any growth of Runway, the business and future activities and prospects of Runway and the Company. All forward-looking statements in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions; however, the Company can give no assurance that the actual results or developments will be realized by certain specified dates or at all. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations, including that the expected synergies of the investment in Runway may not be realized as expected; the risk that each of the Company and Runway may require a significant investment of capital and other resources in order to expand and grow their respective businesses; the Company has a limited operating history with respect to an asset management oriented business model and the matters discussed under “Risk Factors” in the most recently filed annual information form and management discussion and analysis for the Company. Readers, therefore, should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. Further, a forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which such statement is made. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any such statement or to reflect new information or the occurrence of future events or circumstances except as required by securities laws. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release.
This press release is not, and under no circumstances is it to be construed as, a prospectus or an advertisement and the communication of this release is not, and under no circumstances is it to be construed as, an offer to sell or an offer to purchase any securities in the Company or in any fund or other investment vehicle. This press release is not intended for U.S. persons. The Company’s shares are not registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and the Company is not registered under the U.S. Investment Company Act of 1940 (the “1940 Act”). U.S. persons are not permitted to purchase the Company’s shares absent an applicable exemption from registration under each of these Acts. In addition, the number of investors in the United States, or which are U.S. persons or purchasing for the account or benefit of U.S. persons, will be limited to such number as is required to comply with an available exemption from the registration requirements of the 1940 Act.
Contacts Mount Logan Capital Inc. 365 Bay Street, Suite 800 Toronto, ON M5H 2V1 info@mountlogancapital.ca
We were polarised by the United States last week, but in the same way that a windscreen wiper distracts you from the rain, our Pacific news cycle and local coconut wireless became dominated by a whirlwind of speculation after New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters announced a review of New Zealand’s aid to Kiribati.
This followed what was perceived as a snub by our President Taneti Maamau.
The New Zealand media, in its typical fashion, seized the opportunity to patronise Kiribati, and the familiar whispers about Chinese influence began to circulate.
Amidst this media manufactured drama, I found myself reflecting on “that” recent experience which offered stark contrast to the geopolitical noise.
We had the privilege of attending the ordination of a Catholic Priest in Onotoa, where the true spirit of Kiribati was exemplified in the splendour of simplicity. Despite limited resources, the island community, representing various faiths, came together to celebrate this sacred event with unparalleled joy, hilariousness and hospitality from silent hands that blessed you with love.
Hands that built thatched huts for us to sleep in, wove mats, cooked food, made pillows and hung bananas in maneabas to provide for guests from all over Kiribati and Nauru. Our President, himself a Protestant, had prioritised and actively participated, embodying by example, the unity and peace that Bishop Simon Mani so eloquently spoke of.
We laughed, we cried, and we felt the spirit of our loving God.
Spirit of harmony That spirit of harmony and hope we carried from recent experiences felt shaken overnight by news of New Zealand’s potential aid withdrawal. Social media in Kiribati erupted with questions and concerns, fuelled by an article claiming that New Zealand was halting aid due to President Maamau “snubbing” of Deputy Prime Minister Peters.
Importantly: President Maamau would never in a millennium intentionally “snub” New Zealand or any foreign minister. The reality is far more nuanced.
At the end of 2024, President Maamau announced to his Cabinet Ministers that he would delegate international bilateral engagements to Vice-President Dr Teuea Toatu or other Ministers and Ambassadors appropriately. Thereby enabling him to focus intently on domestic matters, including the workplan for our national necessities outlined in the KV20 vision and 149 deliverables of his party manifesto.
NZ’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters . . . his spat with Kiribati described as a “storm in a teacup”. Image: RNZ/Reece Baker
While the Vice-President was prepared to receive the New Zealand delegation, it seems Minister Peters was insistent on meeting with the President himself, leading to the cancellation of his trip.
This insistence on bypassing established protocol is not only unusual but also, well let’s just say it with as much love as possible: It’s disrespectful to Kiribati’s sovereignty.
It is also worth noting that the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia recently visited Kiribati and engaged with the Vice-President and Cabinet Ministers without any such reluctance.
New Zealand’s subsequent announcement of an aid review, including a potential threat to the $2 million funded RSE scheme, has understandably caused serious anxiety in Kiribati.
Devastating impact The potential loss of funding for critical sectors like health, education, fisheries, economic development and climate resilience would of course have a devastating impact on our people.
After committing $102 million between 2021-2024 these are major threats to public health where $20 million was invested in initiatives like rebuilding the Betio Hospital, training doctors, building clinics, NCD strategic planning and more, $10 million in education, $4 million in developing the fisheries sector, it’s an expansive and highly impactful list of critical support for capacity strengthening to our country.
While New Zealand has every right to review its aid programme to Kiribati or any developing country, it is crucial that these kinds of decisions are based on genuine development processes and not used as a tool for political pressure.
Linking Pacific aid to access to political leaders sets a questionable precedent and undermines the principles of partnership, mutual respect and “mana” that underpins the inextricably linked relationships between Pacific nations.
The reference to potential impacts on I-Kiribati workers in New Zealand under the RSE scheme is particularly concerning. These hardworking individuals contribute significantly to the New Zealand economy in a mutually beneficial arrangement.
We deserve to be treated with fairness and respect, not weaponised to cut at the heart of what drives our political motivations — providing for our people, who are providing for our children.
Despite this unfortunate situation, I believe that dialogue and understanding along with truth and love will prevail.
Greater humility needed In the spirit of the “effectiveness, inclusiveness, resilience, and sustainability” that upholds New Zealand’s own development principles, we should all revisit this issue with greater humility and a commitment to resolving such misunderstandings.
As a New Zealand-born, Australian/Tuvaluan, I-Kiribati politician representing the largest constituency in Kiribati, I have zero pride or ego and will never be too proud to beg for the needs of the people I serve, who placed their faith in a government that would put them first.
We would love to host Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and a New Zealand government delegation in Kiribati, and we are indescribably grateful for the kinds of support provided since we gained independence in 1979. Our history stretches back even further than that, when New Zealand’s agricultural industry was nourished by phosphate from Banaba, and we continue to treasure the intertwined links between our nations.
Let us prioritise cooperation and mutual respect over ego and political posturing. Let’s drink fresh coconuts and eat raw fish together and talk about how we can change the world by changing ourselves first.
The “tea party” of Pacific partnership must continue to strengthen, and deepen, ESPECIALLY when challenged to overcome misunderstandings. It should always be one where Pacific voices are heard and respected lovingly, while we work towards a collective vision of health, peace and prosperity for all.
But if development diplomacy ever fails, we’ll remember that I-Kiribati people are some of the most determined and resilient on this planet. Our ancestors navigated to these “isolated isles of the Pacific” surrounded by 3.5 million km of ocean and found “Tungaru” which means “a place of JOY”.
We arrived in this world with nothing, and we’ll leave it with nothing, and we get to live our whole lives not feeling sorry for ourselves in this island paradise of ours, this place of joy, where we are wealthy in ways that money cannot buy.
We will survive
Ruth Maryanne Cross Kwansing was elected an independent member of Parliament in Kiribati in 2024. She later joined the Tobwaan Kiribati Party.
As night falls over Australia’s forests, grasslands and backyards, the hidden world of nocturnal insects stirs to life. In many ecosystems, overall insect activity actually peaks at night, especially in warmer regions of the world.
These nighttime creatures play essential roles in ecosystems, providing services such as pollination, waste decomposition, and pest control. Here are some of the remarkable insects that come out after dark – and why they matter.
Moths: the stars of the night shift
While their flashier daytime relatives, the butterflies, often steal the spotlight, moths are the hidden stars of the night shift.
An estimated 22,000 species of moth call Australia home, and most are nocturnal, although some are diurnal (day active) or crepuscular (active at dawn and dusk).
Many species feed on flower nectar using their long, straw-like mouthparts, transferring pollen between flowers as they go.
In the Snowy Mountains, for instance, scientists found moths carry pollen from 19 different plant species.
While some moths feed on a wide variety of plants, others have evolved highly specialised relationships with specific flowers.
For instance, more than 500 species of leaf flower trees (Phyllanthus) across tropical Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Pacific are dependent on tiny leaf flower moths (Epicephala) for their pollination.
The trees’ flowers attract moths by producing nectar at night, when the moths are most active.
The larvae of moths, caterpillars, also play a vital role in ecosystems. For example, the larvae of Mallee moths (Oecophoridae) feed on dry leaves in the leaf litter, making them essential for the decomposition of tough, dry plant material.
Without their tireless work breaking down organic matter, leaf litter can accumulate to problematic levels.
Although most caterpillars feed on plant material, some have unusual diets. Trisyntopa neossophila caterpillars, for example, feeds on the faeces of parrots nesting in termite mounds.
Some caterpillars are even predators. The larvae of the brown scale moth (Mataeomera coccophaga), for instance, eats scale insects.
Once so abundant they famously blanketed the 2000 Sydney Olympics, large bogong swarms have become increasingly rare, putting at risk species that depend on them for essential nutrients.
Busy night beetles
Seeing the tiny, flashing lights of fireflies dancing through the darkness on a summer night is a magical experience.
Fireflies are actually beetles in the family Lampyridae, and 25 species call Australia home.
Each firefly species uses its own distinctive flash pattern to communicate with potential mates.
When large numbers of the same species gather, they can synchronise their light pulses, creating a breathtaking light show.
The fireflies’ distinctive light is produced through a biochemical reaction involving a molecule called luciferin and an enzyme called luciferase. When these interact in the presence of oxygen, they emit light.
Adult fireflies do not eat but firefly larvae mostly eat snails, which helps keep snail populations under control.
Beetles in the scarab family are often active at night. Large numbers of Christmas beetles (Anoplognathus spp) flying around porch lights used to be a common sight, but numbers appear to be in decline.
Some native dung beetles, such as the five-horned dung beetle (Onthophagus pentacanthus), are also nocturnal. Hardworking dung beetles play a vital role by breaking down animal dung, helping to recycle nutrients and improve soil health.
Lacewings and mantisflies
Lacewings belong to an ancient group of insects (Neuroptera) named for the delicate, lace-like net pattern of veins on their wings.
Most adult lacewings are nocturnal predators, feeding on smaller insects using their hollow, scissor-shaped mouthparts to catch and suck the nutrients from their prey.
Several lacewing species are effective pest controllers and are used in agriculture to manage pests such as aphids and mealybugs.
Mantid lacewings, also known as mantisflies, resemble a strange hybrid between a mantis and a fly but are actually in the same group as lacewings.
The larvae of mantisflies are poorly studied, but most species are believed to be predators of insects, although some are predators of spider eggs. By eating other insects, mantisflies may play a role in controlling pest populations.
Protecting these night shift workers
Artificial lights at night are causing serious disruption to insects on the night shift.
Insects often become disoriented, flying in endless circles around bright lights, burning energy they cannot afford to lose. This confusion can lead to exhaustion or death.
Artificial lighting at night can also disrupt nocturnal insect reproduction. And, predators such as owls and bats may learn to hunt around artificial lights where prey becomes more concentrated and vulnerable.
The exact reasons why nocturnal insects are drawn to light remain unclear, but recent research suggests that some nocturnal insects use light to maintain stable, level flight by orienting their bodies so light hits their upper surface.
This system works well when the only lights present at night are the Moon and stars, but fails when artificial lights disrupt the night.
We can help protect nocturnal insects by:
turning off unnecessary outdoor lights at night, especially during summer when many insects are breeding
using motion-activated lights to reduce light pollution
reducing or eliminating the use of insecticides in our gardens.
Small changes can make a big difference to help protect the insects working hard overnight to keep our ecosystems healthy.
Tanya Latty co-founded and volunteers for conservation organisation Invertebrates Australia, is former president of the Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour and is on the Education committee for the Australian Entomological Society. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council, NSW Saving our Species, and Agrifutures Australia.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon McLennan, Senior Research and Teaching Fellow, School of Health, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Fiji’s minister of health declared an official HIV outbreak in January, citing 1,093 new cases from January to September 2024 – triple the number from the same period in 2023.
The World Health Organization defines a disease outbreak based on the number of cases being in excess of normal expectations. Similar to an epidemic, an outbreak typically refers to a more limited geographic area.
Declaring an outbreak enables prompt public health response measures and mobilises domestic and international resources to respond to the crisis.
Preliminary Ministry of Health data show half of the newly diagnosed individuals receiving anti-retroviral therapy contracted HIV through injecting drugs.
However, the crisis extends beyond drug use. Increasing urbanisation, homelessness and unemployment, coupled with disconnection from traditional land and culture, contribute to risky health behaviours.
Low HIV awareness and social stigma compound these factors. Many Fijians are reluctant to get tested and, if positive, to receive care. Knowledge of HIV prevention is low: a 2021 survey found less than a third of those aged between 15 and 24 had comprehensive HIV knowledge.
Fiji is a regional hub for education and business, attracting students and economic migrants from across the region. There’s a real risk the virus will spread to other island nations via returning workers and students, potentially undetected for long periods.
Fiji is also a major tourist destination. Unsuspecting visitors, whose fun in the sun extends to drug use or unsafe sexual activities, may be at risk.
There is also a risk of reputational damage for the tourism industry, whose success relies on marketing Fiji as a safe and happy destination. With Fiji still recovering from COVID’s impact on tourism, the new crisis is a major threat.
Fiji is also experiencing significant outward migration (5% net in 2023), mostly to Australia and New Zealand. This raises the risk of virus spread through established migration pathways, including labour mobility policies such as the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme and New Zealand’s Recognised Seasonal Employer schemes.
The HIV surge will be costly for the country and the region. HIV/AIDS strains household finances through lost income and increased healthcare costs, diverts public spending from other areas, with flow-on impacts for national and regional economies.
What is being done to combat the outbreak?
The Ministry of Health’s 90-day HIV Outbreak Response Plan fast-tracks high-impact interventions. These include harm-reduction programs, condom distribution, and prophylactic pre-exposure treatment.
This complements the HIV Surge Strategy 2024–2027, a long-term road map for strengthening Fiji’s health system based on the United Nations’ global “95-95-95” targets: 95% rates of testing, treatment and viral suppression in the population.
However, as the health minister noted, the outbreak declaration “reflects the alarming reality that HIV is evolving faster than our current services can cater for”.
Funding is starting to trickle down to the front lines. For example, with support from Australia and New Zealand, the Fiji Reproductive and Family Health Association is working with experts on awareness, prevention and care strategies to reverse the surge.
Duty of care: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva, 2022. Getty Images
What can Australia and New Zealand do at home?
Both countries bear particular responsibility and face specific risks. Their domestic drug markets drive regional trafficking, fuelling Fiji’s meth crisis and the HIV outbreak.
Continued support for regional anti-narcotics initiatives is crucial, as is addressing domestic drug demand.
As beneficiaries of Fijian labour migration, Australia and New Zealand also have a duty of care for migrants. This includes education, screening and treatment for Pacific communities, and access to preventive treatments which are currently not funded for migrants in either country.
Finally, tourists and travellers need to be educated about the risks, and take precautions.
The outbreak declaration demonstrates Fiji’s commitment to addressing the crisis but success will require regional cooperation.
Australia and New Zealand are key stakeholders whose domestic policies and support can significantly affect the outbreak’s trajectory, contribute to a unified Pacific response and protect regional public health.
Sharon McLennan gratefully acknowledges the valuable input and guidance of Avendra Prakash (Chair, Reproductive & Family Health Association of Fiji), Dr Akisi Ravono (University of Fiji) and Dr Johanna Thomas-Maude (Victoria University of Wellington).
Sharon McLennan receives funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi.
Source: United States Senator for Alabama Tommy Tuberville
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) spoke during the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee confirmation hearing for President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services(HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sen. Tuberville and Mr. Kennedy discussed the harmful ingredients used in American food products and ways to Make America Healthy Again.
Earlier today, Sen. Tuberville penned an op-ed explaining why he supports Kennedy for HHS Secretary.
Read excerpts from Sen. Tuberville’s remarks below or watch on YouTube or Rumble.
ON THE OVER-PRESCRIPTION OF MEDICATION: TUBERVILLE: “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy, for being here. Being a few months older than me, I’m going to be respectful to my elders. [laughs] […]
Thank you for bringing light to what this is all about. It’s about the health in our country. There might have been a half a dozen people in [here for the hearing of] the last Health and Human Services nominee—nobody was interested. A lawyer who worked from home in California—didn’t do a damn thing in terms of what we needed when COVID was in full steam.
So, thank you. Thank you for getting our young people involved. My two boys, 28 and 30, a year ago or so were gonna vote for you for President of the United States. You know why? Because you’re trying to save their group of people from the chemicals and the things that we have in our food. They’re fired up about it. And you brought light to that. And thank God you’ve done that. You brought importance to what we’re doing.
You know, I coached for 40 years. In the last four or five years I coached, I’d never seen the run on drugs our young people are being given by doctors across this country. We have an attention deficit problem in this country. When you and I were growing up, our parents didn’t use a drug, they used a belt and whipped our butts, you know, and told us to sit down. Nowadays, we give them Adderall and Ritalin like candy across college campuses and high school campuses. Mr. Kennedy, what are we gonna do about that?”
RFK JR: “Today, 15% of American kids are on Adderall. And there’s clearly a major problem with over-prescription, not just with our children, with our entire population. We have 4.2% of the world’s population, and we take fifty percent of the pharmaceutical drugs. And there’s a recent study by Peter Gotzsche, who is one of the founders of the Cochrane Collaboration that showed that prescription drugs are now the third largest cause of death in our country after cardiac arrest or colon cancer. We’re not getting healthier. Americans are getting less and less healthy. 70% of pharmaceutical profits will globally come from our country, which has 4.2% of the world’s population. We’re the only country that allows full-scale pharmaceutical ads on TV. And we’re all being told that you can eat anything you want, you can smoke anything you want, you can do anything you want and there’ll be a drug to fix you in the end. And it is not a good formula. And our kids are getting sicker and sicker. They’re not getting better. Nobody here—all the people here who are defending this current system and defending these pharmaceutical industry profits—many of whom are taking huge amounts of money from the pharmaceutical industry, millions of dollars for many of these senators. And none of that is making our country healthier. It’s making us sicker. We need to get rid of these conflicts. We need good science, and we need good leadership. [I’m] able to stand up to these big industries and not bend over for them.”
ON VACCINES:
TUBERVILLE: “And you brought to light the vaccines over the last couple of years. I’ll have my first granddaughter here in a couple of weeks, and my son and his wife have done their research about vaccines. And she’s not going to be a pin cushion. We’re not going to allow that to happen. But you brought that up, as you and I talked about with vaccines—let’s empower scientists to do their job. You know, don’t just do something for the pharmaceutical companies. So, I appreciate you doing that.”
ON FOOD INGREDIENTS: TUBERVILLE: “One other thing is—you and I talked about Red Dye No. 3. It just happens that you and I talked about that and a few days later, in this room, we had the FDA director. And I asked him, why don’t we use Red Dye Three in our cosmetics, [but] use it in our food? Yet we don’t use it [in] cosmetics because it causes cancer. What the heck is going on? Well, a few weeks later because of that, [the Biden administration] dropped it. So, tell me about dyes and things that you’re concerned about. I [hear more] about that than anything.”
RFK JR: “We have 10,000 ingredients in our food in this country because the FDA employs a standard called the GRAS standard. And it looks at any new chemical as innocent until proven guilty. Europe, they have 400 ingredients in their foods. Kellogg’s makes fruit loops for the United States alone. It is loaded with a red dye, blue, a yellow dye, and many, many other ingredients. They make the same product for Canada [with] all vegetable dyes. And for Europe, if you eat a McDonald’s French fry in this country, it has 11 ingredients. You eat the same product in Europe, it has three. We are allowing these companies because [of] their influence over this body, over our regulatory agencies, to mass poison American children. And that’s wrong. It needs to end, and I believe I’m the one person who’s able to end it.”
BACKGROUND:
As Alabama’s voice on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and a co-founder of the Senate “Make America Healthy Again” Caucus, Senator Tuberville is a strong supporter of President Trump’s nomination of RFK Jr. to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Sen. Tuberville shares Kennedy’s view that increased transparency is needed for our food and health care systems, especially the chemicals that are being put in America’s food. The FDA recently announced its decision to ban Red Dye 3 following Senator Tuberville questioning top FDA officials on the harm of these chemicals in a HELP hearing last month.
MORE:
Tuberville: “America is facing a public health crisis; We must confirm Robert F Kennedy Jr.”
Tuberville Joins Sen. Marshall in Launching Make America Healthy Again Caucus
Tuberville, MAHA Caucus Celebrate FDA’s Decision to Ban Dangerous Red Dye No. 3 from Foods
1819 News: Tuberville questions FDA over red dyes no. 40 and no. 3 in America’s food supply — ‘It’s not a conservative or a liberal standpoint’
Tuberville Exposes Harmful Chemicals in American Food and Beverage Industry
ICYMI: Tuberville Joins “National Report” on Newsmax
Tuberville Meets with RFK Jr. and Todd Blanche
Coach’s Monthly Column: All in for Trump’s America First nominees
Senator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans’ Affairs, HELP, and Aging Committees.
Source: United States Senator for Alabama Tommy Tuberville
“They are all outstanding choices and should be confirmed to President Trump’s cabinet as soon as possible.”
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) spoke on the Senate floor about the need to quickly confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kash Patel, and Tulsi Gabbard to key roles in President Trump’s cabinet. Sen. Tuberville defended each nominees’ qualifications and their commitments to making America healthy, more just, and secure again. During the speech, Sen. Tuberville denounced the baseless attacks aimed at these nominees by the media and career politicians as nothing but dishonest attempts to tank President Trump’s nominations.
Read Senator Tuberville’s remarks below or watch on YouTube or Rumble.
“Mr. President,
I’d like to start by thanking Leader Thune for President Trump’s cabinet nominees so far. President Trump is on the verge of having his full team. We’ve confirmed Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem, Scott Bessent and many others who are doing an outstanding job implementing President Trump’s America First agenda, but there are more critical nominees that President Trump still needs to confirm. This includes Robert Kennedy, Kash Patel, and Tulsi Gabbard, along with a few others.
I’ve gotten the chance to meet with each of these nominees. I’ve been very impressed. They are all outstanding choices and should be confirmed to President Trump’s cabinet as soon as possible.
First, I’d like to express my complete and total support for Robert F. Kennedy’s nomination to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services. You know, last November, we saw millions of Americans, especially young Americans, flock to the MAGA movement after Bobby Kennedy endorsed President Trump.
Both my sons, 28 and 30, Tucker and Troy, were huge fans of RFK and I know there’re just millions of young people who RFK [has] brought to the table and into the fold, opening our eyes towards something they had never really been involved in, and that’s the health of their generation and all generations across the country.
As we know, Bobby started [the] Make America Healthy Again movement, known as MAHA, which eventually joined forces with President Trump. MAHA isn’t just a political slogan. It’s not just a political slogan. It’s a movement. That has swept our Nation. For the first time, important issues like the effectiveness of vaccines, the dangers of prescription medicines, and the chemicals in our food and household products are part of our national political [discourse], as it should be. And it’s all because of the work of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
You know, before entering the arena, Bobby spent four decades, environmental law, and in healthcare policies, specializing in issues like water pollution, vaccines, and food safety. Four decades. He is an accomplished attorney who attended Harvard, the London School of Economics, and the University of Virginia. And he’s authored multiple best-selling books that I would suggest anybody, that’s concerned about the health of our country, should read.
Throughout his career, he has committed to discovering the truth about what is causing the chronic disease epidemic in America today. And his presidential campaign exposed the fact that we have a serious, a very serious public health crisis facing our country today and in the future.
For example, in his hearing yesterday, Bobby Kennedy laid out that over seventy percent of adults and one third of our children are overweight or obese. The rate of diabetes is ten times more prevalent today than it was in 1960. Cancer among our young people is rising by one or two percent every year. Auto immune diseases, neurodevelopmental disorders, and addiction cases are hugely on the rise. Depression and anxiety rates are absolutely through the roof. Meanwhile, more Americans are reliant on pharmaceutical drugs than ever before.
I saw that in my formal life of being a coach of players years ago, very few on any kind of drug such as Adderall or Ritalin for attention deficit. But the last few years, it was a huge uptick in prescription drugs and many, many young people across the country. These findings are alarming, and they should, and they had better shock, all of us.
Thank God, Bobby has dedicated his life to getting to the bottom of what’s causing these trends. As he did in his hearing yesterday, Bobby is an expert on the health issues facing our country and has the facts, the data, and the evidence to prove it. And he will bring his commitment to evidence-based science, transparency to our national health agencies. And it’s simple: Americans want access to all the facts so they can decide what’s best for themselves and for their families. Bobby is committed to giving Americans the information that they need to be informed and make informed decisions.
Recently, I’ve seen the mainstream media, and some politicians attempt to smear Bobby Kennedy as anti-vax, anti-industry, or an enemy of food producers. All of this couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s just a political attack. We’ve even heard from prominent Republicans like former -Vice President Mike Pence who is running ads on TV criticizing Bobby Kennedy for not being sufficiently pro-life.
Bobby addressed this himself yesterday. He believes every abortion is a tragedy, and he will work with President Trump to implement his pro-life policies. These attacks are nothing more than dishonest attempts by the DC establishment to tank his nomination. We’ve seen that in the last couple of weeks on all nominees.
Sure. Bobby Kennedy may not be the typical pick for the job, but the American people don’t want a typical pick. The one we picked four years ago for President Biden was a lawyer, lived in California, and very seldom came to Washington D.C., worked from home. We got nothing done in health and human services.
They gave us a mandate in November, 77 million people, to deliver Trump, President Trump’s agenda. And that includes Making America Healthy Again. As far as I’m concerned, Bobby is not part of being the healthcare establishment class. That’s a really good thing. We don’t need that. Look where it’s got us. The pharmaceutical industry and industrial food complex won’t be running the show anymore when Bobby Kennedy is confirmed. Instead, he will restore our health agencies to the gold standard of [scientific] research and explore [holistic] healthcare alternatives as part of our efforts to end chronic disease epidemics across this country.
Ultimately, this will lower cost for Americans and ease the burden on our entire healthcare system, which is being overrun by all of the conditions that we have popping up today. With the many public health crisis we’re facing as a country, we have no time to waste. Hope my colleagues will join me in supporting Bobby for HHS Secretary and help President Trump Make America Healthy Again.
Our next nominee, I’d like to turn to Kash Patel.
He is on the Hill today going through his confirmation hearings. Kash is President Trump’s pick to be the FBI Director, who testified in front of the Senate all morning long. Kash is an excellent choice, and he has my full support.
It’s clear to the American people that the culture at the top of our top police agency in this country, the FBI, is rotten. It’s rotten to the core. We have some good people. But the people in charge have made devastating decisions against a lot of people across this country. It is far past time to clean house at the FBI.
Over the last four years, we’ve seen the Bureau become politicized and weaponized. The Biden administration turned the FBI into the ‘fake bureau of investigation.’ The scales of justice were never fair and balanced under the last administration. Christopher Ray, the director, went after parents at school boards [and] pro-lifers. He went after Catholics. He went after grandmas who peacefully protested right outside this building on January the sixth. He went to their homes and arrested them. Not to mention the unprecedented raid on President Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
What we’ve seen unfold at our nation’s premiere law enforcement agency over the last four years is a complete and absolute disgrace to the American people and to our Constitution.
Not only has the public’s trust in [the] FBI been completely eroded, it’s been a disservice to all the great men and women in the FBI, who commit every day to defending the Constitution and protecting us as American citizens. It’s going to take a lot of hard work to right this ship. Trust has to be put back into the FBI. Kash Patel is the right man to do [the] job.
He’s qualified and has an impressive resume. He served in several national security and intelligence roles, as [a] federal prosecutor, and as a public defender. Not only is Kash qualified, but he also has the courage and the resolve needed to restore our faith in the FBI. Despite the media’s lies, Kash won’t have his enemies list when he takes a job, unlike the Biden administration. If crimes are committed, he will open an investigation, follow facts wherever they lead. No bias, no partiality.
Kash will bring back truth and transparency, uphold the rule of law and the Constitution, and protect Americans against its enemies, foreign, and domestic. He will ensure that the government works for the American people and not the other way around.
Let’s confirm Kash quickly and give President Trump an important component of his national security team. I look forward to supporting Kash Patel, and I hope my Republican colleagues will do the same.
Finally, we need to confirm Tulsi Gabbard to be our next Director of National Intelligence. Like Kash, Tulsi will play a critical role on President Trump’s national security team.
She just had her hearing in front of the Senate Intel Committee this morning. Her hearing only further confirmed to me that Tulsi is the perfect candidate for the DNI role. She is a decorated lieutenant colonel, over twenty years of service in the military. Tulsi served in combat in the Iraq War and is currently active in [the reserves]. She has a top security clearance, having passed five background checks to receive it.
Tulsi served in Congress for eight years, where she sat on the Homeland Security, Armed Services, and Foreign Relations Committee. And as a member of Congress, she consistently participated in high-level intelligence briefings. [As] she has displayed throughout her entire career in the military and as an elected official, Tulsi will bring a fearless spirit to the DNI role.
I have to tell you my meeting with Tulsi is one of the most impressive meetings I’ve had since I’ve been in this office going on five years. [Her] knowledge and expertise is unmatched. I have no doubt she will keep our country secure while protecting the Constitution and the constitutional rights of all Americans. She will help us return to peace through strength and put an end to Americans costly foreign wars.
The attacks on her, questioning her loyalty to the United States are absolutely disgusting. It’s insulting. Tulsi has devoted her entire life to serving this country, [in] the military, and in public service.
To the Senators criticizing Tulsi for not fitting the typical mold of a DNI director, [it] might just be a good thing. Have the last several years shown us that the status quo is working? No. I don’t think so. And I don’t think the American people think so either, and they’re the ones that count.
Tulsi brings a fresh perspective to the job in the America that we all want and deserve. We do not need another James Clapper. Like the FBI, we’ve seen our intelligence community weaponized to target opponents of the regime. The IC conspired to take down President Trump in 2016 and 2020. And maybe most recently [in] the election a couple months ago.
For that reason, I think Tulsi is exactly the change agent we need leading our intelligence community. Like Bobby Kennedy, Tulsi switched her party affiliation because she saw the status quo as a threat to the American people and our constitutional rights. As Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi will check her politics at the door just like she’s done the last twenty years serving in our military.
She will come to DNI without any bias. She will fix our broken intelligence community, and folks, it is broken. I look forward to confirming Tulsi to DNI.
I urge all my colleagues to join me in voting for Tulsi. She will play a major role in President Trump’s team in restoring faith in our intelligence community.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.”
Senator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans’ Affairs, HELP, and Aging Committees.
Source: United States Senator for Alabama Tommy Tuberville
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) questioned President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, in his Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) confirmation hearing. Sen. Tuberville and Mr. Driscoll discussed delays in military construction at Redstone Arsenal. Sen. Tuberville also discussed the need to better incentivize new military recruits, following the announcement of his new Chairmanship of the SASC Subcommittee on Personnel.
Read excerpts from Sen. Tuberville’s remarks below or watch on YouTube or Rumble.
ON ARMY PILOT TRAINING PROGRAMS:
TUBERVILLE: “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Driscoll, thanks for being here. Thanks for your service. I wanna echo the thoughts about what’s happened last night here [in] our home territory is devastating. […] Fort Novosel in my state of Alabama, you know, we train all the vertical lift Army pilots, as you well know. […] I wanna get your thoughts on what you think about the new curriculum for a flight school that the Army has proposed. This affects all the pilots in the Army. And I wanna get your commitment continuing an open dialogue about the Army’s intent on how best to leverage existing resources. We’re cutting back on sorties. We’re not putting money in training like we used to—like we need to do. We’re undertrained in some areas. So, I’d like to get your thoughts on the curriculum and your thoughts about the future of vertical lift, especially with the new vertical lift that the Army is purchasing for the future fights that we might have.”
DRISCOLL: “Senator, to your comment on what occurred last night, I think we’re all collectively gonna have to take a deep dive and figure out what occurred there. The early indicators from what I’ve seen on television—I have no other access to information—is that it might have been a training exercise gone wrong that had catastrophic outcomes. And so, we’re going to have to work together to make sure that never occurs again or at least to mitigate the odds that it could ever occur again. And then specifically the future of vertical flight—if you look at the contested airspace with our peer China and what we will have to do. Our vertical assets are going to have to be able to get further and faster with lower signature than they do today. That being said, if you look at FARA, the current push for the Army, it is early in its development, it is incredibly expensive, and we are likely going to have to work with the Black Hawk’s and the Chinook’s and the assets that we have today. And so, if confirmed, I would wanna get briefed on this and do a deep dive with the team to figure out how are we going to position ourselves and what training do we need for the next one day to five years until we can get to a better state.”
ON MILCON DELAYS:
TUBERVILLE: “Thank you. I want to discuss an issue that affects many of our installations, including mine in Huntsville, [Alabama] at Redstone, Arsenal. The issue is military construction—MILCON as we know it—we need to move fast, and the traditional military construction process is far too slow. Back at Redstone Arsenal, there are two warehouses as we speak being constructed, one for military by the [Army] Corps of Engineers and one by the FBI. These warehouses are roughly the same […], but the FBI has got a huge amount of bells and whistles, more than the military warehouse. The military warehouse is going to cost almost $56 million and it’s going to take 48 months—four years—to build this. Where the FBI facility is going to cost $40 million and [should take] take only basically a year and a half. We [have] got a problem. Okay? How on earth does this make any sense? The Army is currently running a repair by replacement pilot program that is being tested at a couple of installations to demolish older barracks and replace them with new modern facilities. The key part of this program is that it is using operations and maintenance dollars versus traditional MILCON dollars. Are you familiar with this?”
DRISCOLL: “Senator, I had the opportunity to talk with you about in your office. Yeah—and this is the type of thing that makes my blood boil on behalf of soldiers. The Army has a limited budget to begin with. We have to be good stewards of the American taxpayer’s dollars. And when we are not, it is both the taxpayer and the soldier—and these soldiers are my friends—it is my friends that live in these barracks and raise their families there. And we need to stretch these dollars as far as we can.”
ON MILITARY RECRUITING:
TUBERVILLE: “Yeah. And the other small point I want to bring up, we’ve talked about recruiting. I won’t get into that. The new recruit in the army makes $25,000 a year before taxes. We just gave [them] a raise, but we can’t expect to attract the best and the brightest young men and women in the military unless we do something else […]. I know we give them a lot of perks at the end of the day, but we have got to understand [that] $25,000 [is not enough]. I mean, most of them can make that in two months’ time in some kind of big tech [job] or whatever. So, just keep that in mind as you get into recruiting. We have got to start taking care of these young men and women if we’re gonna build the fighting force that we need. Thank you.”
DRISCOLL: “Yes, Sir.”
Senator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans’ Affairs, HELP, and Aging Committees.
The creators of the epic fantasy sequel “Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force” said the new film will showcase the beauty and wonders of Chinese culture and mythology to audiences worldwide.
The cast and crew of “Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force” pose for a photo at the premiere in Beijing, Jan. 29, 2025. [Photo courtesy of Beijing Culture]
Pop icon and actor Kris Phillips reprises his role as the main villain, King Zhou, in the second installment of Wuershan’s ambitious trilogy. However, he also took on another crucial role in this film: translation.
“I have seen the film six or seven times already on various occasions because I was working on the English subtitles for its international release,” Phillips said. During the Spring Festival, “Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force” debuted in Chinese theaters and was simultaneously screened in nearly 20 countries and regions, including North America, Australia and the United Kingdom, starting Jan. 29, the first day of Chinese New Year.
Phillips emphasized the importance of accurate translation: “I particularly cared about the English translation because it was essential for global audiences to understand ‘Creation of the Gods,’ a complex story filled with numerous characters. There were many Chinese terms, such as ‘Kunlun’ and the distinction between immortals and gods, that foreign viewers might not understand. Therefore, I had to find ways within the subtitle lines to include explanatory information.”
A still from “Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force” shows King Zhou, portrayed by Kris Phillips. [Photo courtesy of Beijing Culture]
As a Chinese American who has immersed himself in both cultures for decades, Phillips was well-suited for the role. Once his English subtitles were completed, translations into other languages, such as French and German, followed based on his work.
In the wake of the first film’s success, overseas audiences actively pushed for a simultaneous release of the sequel. “Now we have done it, fulfilling our promise,” director Wuershan said. “We will let audiences around the world experience the charm of Chinese culture.”
After dedicating more than a decade to creating and crafting the trilogy, Wuershan saw “Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms” earn 2.64 billion yuan ($363 million) at the box office in 2023. The film became a cultural phenomenon, launching and revitalizing the careers of both young and veteran actors like Yu Shi and Kris Phillips.
The second film, “Demon Force,” also based on the Ming dynasty novel “The Investiture of the Gods,” follows Ji Fa, the future founding king of the Zhou dynasty, and strategist Jiang Ziya as they defend their homeland, Xiqi. With the support of Kunlun immortals Yang Jian and Ne Zha, the heroes face off against the formidable demonic army of King Zhou’s Shang dynasty, commanded by the cunning Grand Preceptor Wen Zhong and the fierce female general Deng Chanyu.
A still from “Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force” depicts an epic battle scene infused with magic. [Photo courtesy of Beijing Culture]
Before the film’s premiere in Beijing on Jan. 29, the cast and crew toured eight cities to promote it, starting in Zhengzhou, Henan province. Wuershan noted that they had visited Zhengzhou many times to explore museums and draw inspiration from local culture during the creative process, as this area was the heart of the Shang dynasty and its capital. The crew also visited other historic sites and museums across China, including locations in Shaanxi province, where the Zhou dynasty originated, to gather ideas for props and costumes.
“Integrating traditional culture into the ‘Creation of the Gods’ trilogy is something I am passionate about,” Wuershan said. “Traditional culture needs to come alive, blend with our lives, and become a source of strength. In areas such as costumes, character designs, weapons, and sets, we invited many inheritors of intangible cultural heritage to collaborate on the designs. We hope to demonstrate that Chinese traditional culture is still powerful and encourage more inheritors of intangible cultural heritage to join us in building this mythological epic.”
Even the two new significant characters are deeply rooted in Chinese culture. Deng Chanyu is a Mulan-style warrior, inspired in part by Lady Fu Hao, the first Chinese female general and royal consort during the Shang dynasty. The crew visited Fu Hao’s tomb and memorial site for research, and actor Nashi dedicated 506 days to training and filming. “History gives me strength, inspiration, and motivation, driving me to bring the brilliance of the character Deng Chanyu to the big screen,” she said.
Still photos from “Creation of the Gods II” showcase Deng Chanyu and Wen Zhong, two major new characters in the film. [Photo courtesy of Beijing Culture]
For the role of Grand Preceptor Wen Zhong, actor Wu Hsing-kuo — also a theater actor and Peking Opera performer — deliberately integrated movements and techniques from traditional opera into the character’s gestures and fighting styles. His approach aimed to ensure that Wen not only maintained a dignified posture but also embodied the essence of Chinese aesthetics.
The furious charge of iron-shod hooves, dazzling displays of magic, and the presence of mythical beasts come together to create striking visual moments, reflecting the crew’s dedication to their craft. Since work began in June 2014, the “Creation of the Gods” trilogy has involved extensive preparation, filming and post-production, now in its eleventh year. The “Demon Force” production team included 14 creative departments and over 11,000 staff members from 21 countries and regions. This vast team managed all aspects of the film, including acting, stunts, filming, props and special effects. Every detail was meticulously crafted, contributing to a vivid and engaging Chinese mythological epic.
The film benefited from the support of an Oscar-winning team. Barrie M. Osborne, known for his work on “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, served as a production consultant. James Schamus, who contributed to the Oscar-winning “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” consulted on the script. Tim Yip, who won the Oscar for best art direction for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in 2001, took on the role of art and costume design consultant. Douglas Hans Smith, recognized for his work on “Independence Day,” which won the Oscar for best visual effects in 1997, served as the film’s senior visual effects supervisor. This collaboration of artistic vision and rich traditional Chinese culture results in a stunning array of visuals.
A poster for “Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force.” [Photo courtesy of Beijing Culture]
“After the first movie laid the foundation and introduced the characters, the second installment broadens the narrative to feature epic battles between gods and demons. It is truly a brilliant and amazing film!” Phillips told China.org.cn.
Source: Australia Government Ministerial Statements
The Albanese Government is delivering a record investment in South Australia’s south east, and is adding nearly $7 million to improve housing, childcare, economic, tourism and sports facilities.
This additional funding for the electorate of Barker is delivered through the Albanese Government’s Growing Regions and regional Precincts and Partnership programs which fund projects that help our regions thrive.
We are investing $3.5 million in the Kingston Childcare and Child servicesproject to deliver a new childcare centre, consultation offices for child allied health service professionals, and a designated space for children’s playgroups and family members.
The Penola community will get improvements to the facilities at the Penola Football Club and Community Sports Hub with Albanese Government funding of $1.4 million for the redevelopment.
The Albanese Government is investing $508,000 in the Tailem Bend Precinct Plan which will progress planning for the 10th Street Housing Development and for streetscape upgrades of the main street, highway corridor and connecting areas.
We are also investing in the Mid Murray region’s plans to build a vibrant tourism hub with a grant of $1.5 million.
The project will develop a business case, identify tourism assets, and create a precinct plan connecting 11 towns in the council district.
The Growing Regions Program continues to be highly valued by local communities with a number of worthwhile applications having been received. We look forward to continuing to work with proponents and local councils on these important projects.
Our grants programs are merit-based and transparent, replacing the legacy of rorts and politicised grants programs by the Liberals and Nationals which were criticised by the Australian National Audit Office.
The announcements today build on the significant investments already made by the Albanese Government across the Barker electorate.
We have already invested $17.7 million in Barker from the first round of the Growing Regions Program, more than $900, 000 for Stream 1 of the Housing Support Program and $193,000 for Tintinara Aerodrome.
We have also invested $950 million dollars in major projects such as the National Freight Highway Upgrade Program, Princes Highway and Sturt Highway upgrades, the Regional Level Crossing Upgrade Fund, a safety package for rural roads and Riverland Network Flood Resilience upgrades.
Local councils in the electorate have received a 55% increase in funding for local roads with the Roads to Recovery investment rising $25.5 million to $68.7 million over five years.
This is a direct result of the Albanese Government decision to double the funding for the Roads to Recovery program to $1 billion a year.
Quotes attributable to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Catherine King:
“The Albanese Government is building Australia’s future, investing in the infrastructure locals want that will grow the economy, provide jobs and improve community facilities.
“Developing housing, childcare, tourism and sports facilities helps strengthen economies and helps communities to thrive.
“We understand how important infrastructure is in regions like the south east which is why we prioritise working with local communities.”
Quotes attributable to Senator for South Australia, Don Farrell:
“From families in Kingston and budding athletes in Penola, to residents in Tailem Bend and small businesses across the Mid Murray, we are investing in local communities.
“Developing the infrastructure locals need will support our regions to prosper – delivering for families and small businesses and creating new opportunities for tourism in our state’s spectacular southeast.
“I am proud to be part of an Albanese Government that is committed to building Australia’s future and delivering for regional communities across South Australia.”
The Coalition Government’s scaled-back new Dunedin hospital build is putting cost-cutting ahead of health and wellbeing, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) says.
NZNO President and emergency nurse Anne Daniels says today’s announcement fails to future-proof the health needs of the Southern community.
“This is short-sighted. The Southern community has a growing and aging population. We also have a failing primary care health sector which means more people will unnecessarily need hospital level care.”
NZNO is disappointed but not surprised with today’s announcement, she says.
“We had hoped the Coalition Government would keep its promise to fund the new build as outlined in the 2017 business case which was worked on by 500 clinicians.
“But this Government is still intent on putting dollars before the people. That is a choice.
“They are making decisions about the health and wellbeing of the Southern community rather than doing what they were elected to do,” Anne Daniels says.
The new hospital will open with 16 beds fewer than the existing hospital and even after it is scaled up over time, will have six beds less than originally promised, she said.
“Fewer beds also means fewer jobs for nurses as Te Whatu Ora will resource this hospital based on bed numbers.”
Source: United States Senator for Nevada Cortez Masto
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) joined Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and 10 colleagues in introducing the Halt Lethal Trafficking (HALT) Fentanyl Act to combat illegal fentanyl and keep communities safe.
This legislation makes permanent the temporary classification of fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). This permanent scheduling will give law enforcement the tools they need to keep extremely lethal and dangerous drugs off our streets and ensure scientists can research and better understand these substances. Overdoses, largely driven by fentanyl, are the leading cause of death among young adults 18 to 45 years old. Synthetic opioids like fentanyl account for 66 percent of the total U.S. overdose deaths.
“Far too many Nevadans have lost their lives due to fentanyl, and we need to give law enforcement the tools they need to keep our communities safe,” said Senator Cortez Masto. “My bipartisan bill will keep this deadly drug off our streets, save lives, and make it easier for law enforcement to bring drug traffickers to justice.”
The HALT Fentanyl Act would permanently schedule illicitly produced fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I drugs and streamline the regulatory process for scientists seeking approval from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to research Schedule I substances. The drug’s Schedule I classification is set to expire on March 31, 2025. Senators Cortez Masto, Cassidy, Grassley, and Heinrich were joined by U.S. Senators Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-V.W.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), John Kennedy (R-La.), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) in introducing the legislation. A one-pager can be found here and the bill text can be found here.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were an estimated 107,543 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2023. This was primarily fueled by synthetic opioids, including illegal fentanyl, which are largely manufactured in Mexico from raw materials supplied by China. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the HALT Fentanyl Act in March 2023.
Source: United States Senator for New Hampshire Jeanne Shaheen
(Washington, DC) – In case you missed it: Last night, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), a senior member of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, spoke on the Senate floor to condemn the Trump administration’s order to take away federal grants and loans that families, seniors and small businesses in all 50 states rely on for critical, often life-saving services. Shaheen illustrated the chaos caused by the extreme order by sharing the stories of many Granite Staters she has heard from this week. Click here to watch the Senator’s speech.
Key quotes from Senator Shaheen:
“This is a decision that does not lower costs, it does not create jobs, it does not enhance public safety or keep our communities safe. It’s a decision that actually will hurt people in my state of New Hampshire and too many across the country who rely on services that are now in jeopardy.”
“People in our states can’t get the housing that they’re counting on. If they can’t get their funding, that means more people are forced to live in their cars, on the streets. It means more people can’t get the help they need with substance use disorders or finding work. It means more people are stuck without permanent housing. And these are veterans, they’re families, they’re victims of domestic violence – they’re all placed at risk because of this order.”
“Another of my constituents, Kathleen, lives in housing for seniors. She has debilitating medical issues that make it hard for her to leave her home. She gets all of her food from a local food bank. She called my office because she’s worried that if this funding stops, she’ll be on the street, and she doesn’t know where her meals will come from. That’s what this order and these cuts are threatening.”
“Common sense calls for all of us to work on a bipartisan basis to help our constituents and put an end to the chaos that has been created by this administration in only its second week. I hope we can do that.”
Remarks as delivered can be found below:
Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to join my colleagues to express my deep concerns about the Trump Administration’s extreme decision to take away services that millions of families and small businesses rely on.
This is a decision that does not lower costs, that does not create jobs, that does not enhance public safety or keep our communities safe. It’s a decision that actually will hurt people in my state of New Hampshire and too many across the country who rely on services that are now in jeopardy.
On Monday night, more than 2,600 federal programs were ordered to cease activities with less than 24 hours’ notice. They were given little guidance on how this should be carried out, and in every state across the country, confusion and panic among too many people followed.
Since that order, I have heard from countless Granite Staters who are worried about what this means for them and their families–from healthcare providers to nonprofit organizations to so many who are doing essential, lifesaving work.
Many of these organizations are waiting on promised funding for projects that they have already completed, funding that they went through the process, that they were guaranteed they were going to get these awards, and now they are in jeopardy.
The Trump Administration claims it wants to lower costs for folks. Well, let me be clear: this unprecedented decision does nothing to bring down the price of food, the price of housing, the price of childcare, the price of medications, or other lifesaving needs that families have.
So what we saw this afternoon is that the Administration tried to walk back their order; they rescinded the memo. But sadly, uncertainty and confusion remains, because the White House says that they rescinded the memo but the freeze wasn’t rescinded. So like a lot of people in New Hampshire, I’m concerned, and I’m frustrated. In my state and across much of the country, there is an affordable housing crisis. Because of the Administration’s actions, housing organizations across New Hampshire are not able to use federal funds.
I heard from the Executive Director of the housing authority in the city of Rochester. They said they have 170 families who are at risk of being homeless if they can’t get their operating funding–and that is just one housing authority.
Despite what the Administration said about rental assistance not being affected, at no point yesterday did the Department of Housing and Urban Development say that this money would continue to be available. Housing funding that keeps all of these families and hundreds more across New Hampshire in their homes is at risk of being cut off.
Yesterday, we also heard from the mortgage bankers association. They were asking for clarity because they couldn’t be sure if they could help families complete the purchases of their homes.
The person we talked to said: “Americans are going to the closing table tomorrow and deserve to know that their loan will close on their home purchase. Without this clear assurance that the federal government will ensure new loans or pay claims under these programs, there will be severe harm to borrowers and disruption to the mortgage market.” Well, HUD gave that clarity for single-family mortgage insurance but not for multifamily properties, such as apartment buildings. That affects 20 percent of the multifamily housing construction across the country. Let me just say that again. It affects 20 percent of the multifamily housing construction that is happening right now. We are talking about 130,000 apartments nationally that are jeopardized by this administration’s actions.
Our housing shortage is much of why the most recent point-in-time count for homelessness found it up 18 percent across the country. We have far too many people in this country who don’t have a roof over their heads, and that is especially dangerous during these winter months.
Meanwhile, even though 2 weeks ago New Hampshire nonprofits and state and local governments were awarded more than $14 million to help shelter people and support them, today, they couldn’t access that money. That means they won’t have the funding they need for rent or to get reimbursed for supportive services.
And I want to be clear: even after a judge stayed the order, my constituents still cannot access their funding. The presiding officer is a former governor. He knows what that means. People in our states can’t get the housing that they are counting on. If they can’t get their funding, that means more people are forced to live in their cars, on the streets. It means more people can’t get the help they need with substance use disorders or in finding work. It means more people are stuck without permanent housing. These are veterans; they are families; they are victims of domestic violence. They are all placed at risk because of this order.
I heard from one constituent who has a mortgage from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She has owned her home for 20 years now. She is almost at the point where she has paid off that mortgage, but without the mortgage assistance that she gets from the USDA, she is worried that she might lose her home entirely.
Another of my constituents, Kathleen, lives in housing for seniors. She has debilitating medical issues that make it hard for her to leave her home. She gets all of her food from a local food bank. She called my office because she is worried, if this funding stops, she will be on the street, and she doesn’t know where her meals are going to come from.
That’s what this order and these cuts are threatening–leaving seniors without a roof over their heads, not knowing where their next meal is going to come from.
It is not just in housing that people are concerned. The effects on communities are significant. The chaos of this order is hurting communities that have been promised funding for improvements they have made to their water infrastructure, to their energy use, and even to city parks.
We heard from the town of Conway, which is in the heart of the Mt. Washington valley in the white mountains. With help from the environmental protection agency, Conway has fixed an aging sewer pipe, their sewer main, to keep sewage from leaking into the groundwater.
New Hampshire is really good at working at the local, state, and federal level to address critical infrastructure. This week, Conway received word that, at least for now, they can’t get paid, thanks to this order from the Trump Administration. Conway has already done the work, they have already paid the contractors, and as of today, they are waiting for reimbursement of about $400,000 from the federal government. That is a big deal for a town in a rural area that has fewer than 10,000 people. It affects their tax base. If the federal government doesn’t come through with the money that has been promised, then taxpayers in Conway are going to have to make up that difference.
It is unacceptable for the administration to suggest that it won’t pay this bill, leaving families on the hook for unaffordable rate hikes.
I have also heard from one town administrator who is not yet sure how broad the scope of the administration’s order is and how it is going to affect their ongoing wastewater infrastructure project that is using a mix of federal and non-federal funds.
Their pump station relies on tarps to keep out the elements. The structure and equipment that keep the sewer system functioning face imminent failure. Without the federal funding–which, just to be clear again, has already been committed–there is no way this town can complete this project. That the whims of an unconfirmed budget director can create this degree of uncertainty is maddening.
I have heard from Kristen Murphy, who is with the town of Exeter. She is very concerned about the pause and the impact it will have on energy efficiency funding.
The energy efficiency community block grant program was poised to host a presentation in February for resident-owned manufactured housing on funding opportunities for energy efficiency. That is particularly important for those people who live in manufactured housing. And I did when my husband and I were in graduate school. We lived in what we called a mobile home; now it is manufactured housing. I know how challenging it is to keep them heated and warm and comfortable for the people who live there.
As Kristen pointed out, support for these manufactured housing communities is essential because a greater percentage of their annual income goes to home heating costs than it does for most people.
The Administration’s actions also threaten other projects in Exeter, like a landfill solar array that is currently under construction, improvements to critical stormwater infrastructure, and funding for a multigenerational community center.
There are a dozen other small towns in my state–from Gorham in the northern part of New Hampshire to Keene in the west over the Connecticut River Valley along Vermont—who have made improvements to their parks and community spaces through the land and water conservation fund. These towns have matched federal funding dollar for dollar to improve quality of life in their communities, and as of today, because of the uncertainty and the way this order is being interpreted, taxpayers are left holding the bag.
In the area of childcare and nutrition, the chaos and confusion from the White House over the past 2 days have created significant uncertainty for early education programs, and it risks further fueling the childcare crisis.
Again, like housing, we have a childcare crisis in New Hampshire. The cost of childcare for the average family, if they have a toddler and an infant, is over $30,000 a year.
Now, fortunately, the timing of this uncertainty has not disrupted services in New Hampshire so far, but I am hearing stories of programs in other states that had to temporarily stop serving families because they were not able to access the funds they needed.
It is unclear what the impacts of these shifting policies will be on child care and development block grants, which working families rely on to be able to afford care for their children while parents are at work.
My office has heard from the Childcare Network Collaborative in New Hampshire with significant concerns that childcare providers may be prevented from accessing community development block grant funding that they have already been awarded. These funds are intended for the purchase of a building that will prevent huge rent increases for childcare providers and help fuel an expansion of childcare in the rural parts of northern New Hampshire.
Childcare programs are also concerned about the potential impacts on other federal programs that the families they serve rely on. For example, while the Administration eventually said yesterday that SNAP payments wouldn’t be affected, programs are finding it hard to reassure families about whether they will actually get their monthly payments on time given the disruptions that we have already seen to programs that were not supposed to be affected according to the Administration’s own words. So more chaos and uncertainty.
That is why so many of my constituents are telling me they simply do not trust what they are hearing from the White House.
Families relying on programs like SNAP for food and WIC for women, infants, and children to keep from going hungry already struggle to make their benefits last until the beginning of the next month. Any payment delays, even if it is just a few days, will cause needless suffering for hungry children. It is cruel to be putting struggling families through this unnecessary anxiety. When it comes to law and order, the president often speaks about his commitment to law and order. In 2020, he criticized democrats who supposedly wanted to “defund” and “abolish” the police. Yet here we are with the president stopping federal funds from going to police and law enforcement agencies. Make no mistake, this stoppage could place lives and livelihoods in jeopardy.
I heard from Strafford County Sheriff Kathyrn Mone about how the cutoff of funds will affect them. I live in Strafford County, so I know the sheriff there very well. Strafford County was awarded a $715,000 COPS technology grant to buy much needed modern and interoperable portable and mobile radios for first responders. The U.S. Department of Justice notified the county on Monday that they are going to withhold these funds, forcing the county to place a hold on the order of new, updated radios. Now, this may not sound like a big deal to some, but this equipment helps Strafford County first responders protect Granite Staters. If first responders can’t communicate effectively, by definition, they can’t respond to emergencies and crimes.
When I was governor, we had a horrible shooting in northern New Hampshire. Two state troopers, a judge, and a newspaper editor were killed. As they were trying to get the perpetrator, our state police couldn’t talk to local police, they couldn’t talk to the Vermont law enforcement, they couldn’t talk to the Canadians, and they couldn’t talk to Maine–all of whom were involved in trying to catch the perpetrator–because they didn’t have the communication, the radios they needed to keep people safe.
In the same vein, the town of Newington on the Seacoast was awarded $80,000 to replace 20-year-old radios and technology that can’t communicate with modern equipment. The town was on the verge of submitting its invoices to be reimbursed for buying this crucial public safety equipment when the trump administration stopped the flow of federal funds.
If they are in an emergency, like a natural disaster or a mass shooter, Newington’s police and fire departments would not be able to communicate on their current radio equipment to coordinate an effective response with federal, state, and local partners. This lack of coordination among first responders could result in Newington’s police or fire department not arriving in time to fight a fire or to rescue people in need of help. The lack of modern radio communications could result in people not getting medical care quickly enough.
Again, this is much needed equipment that allows officers to communicate quickly and effectively to not only protect the people they serve but to protect each other.
Thanks to President Trump, Newington is being forced to pause its upgrade of 20-year-old equipment.
It should also be noted that the White House payment freeze means that the businesses who sold Newington the radios and associated equipment are not going to get paid in a timely fashion.
So let’s call it what it is: stopping funds to law enforcement and first responders puts lives and businesses in jeopardy.
It also affects defense contractors. New Hampshire has a strong defense industrial base. We have a lot of companies that do great work to protect our men and women who are serving. The federal funding freeze is hitting those small businesses and manufacturers that rely on defense contracts to pay their workforce, which is critical to maintaining our national security.
For example, the New Hampshire APEX accelerators program relies on grants from the Department of Defense to help small businesses navigate federal contracting. In New Hampshire, government contracts and subcontracts totaled $4 billion last year.
Now, that is not just some number that helps fuel our economy. For people from big states, maybe that doesn’t sound like a lot of money in your economy, but in New Hampshire’s economy, that is a lot of money, and it is an investment in our national defense. It is a manufacturing worker’s ability to support their family. So let’s not lose sight of what and who we are talking about here.
The freeze blocks funding under the Defense Production Act, which expands the defense industrial base under national security emergencies. Right now, we have a lot of businesses in New Hampshire that are receiving funding under the defense production act to support their operations. These grants strengthen military readiness and capacity.
In the area of health, this pause will also cause real harm to healthcare providers and patients across our state. Everyone from our largest hospitals down to individual patients is reaching out to my office. They are confused, and they are scared.
The most immediate consequences will be felt by safety net providers like community health centers. They are vital to caring for our most vulnerable populations. Their patients are often uninsured for healthcare. Sometimes they are homeless. Some of them suffer from substance use disorders or mental illness. They rely on their community health centers just to get through the day.
As much as 50 percent of community health center funding comes from federal grants, and their operating margins are slim.
Lamprey Health Care in Newmarket, in the southern part of New Hampshire, tried and failed to draw down federal funds yesterday. They have another scheduled drawdown for early next week. This means that Lamprey has a limited number of days before the Trump Administration’s order limits the services they can provide to the community.
Amoskeag Health–another one of our community health centers–provides services in Manchester, our largest city. It would also suffer from a funding pause. Thirty-five percent of their funding comes from federal grants, and they only have 19 days of cash on hand, which would cover just 1 week of payroll. They are scheduled to get funding on Monday, and that is now in the lurch.
Federal funding to train the healthcare workforce is also being threatened. New Hampshire struggles to retain and recruit healthcare providers, and federal funding is critical to ensuring we have enough providers in rural and underserved areas.
Last week, Elliot Hospital–one of the largest hospitals in the largest city, in Manchester–received notice that $3 million in funding for its nursing expansion grant program was put on hold. There are currently 80 potential students enrolled in this program. The program is designed to address the acute nursing workforce shortage by attracting local applicants in the greater Manchester community. The funding freeze now puts that effort in jeopardy. And Coos County Family Health, the northernmost county in New Hampshire, up along the Canadian border, is another community health center where access to healthcare can be extremely limited. Patients frequently have to drive hours to get access to some of the most basic services.
Coos County Family Health received a planning grant through the Health Resources and Services Administration, HRSA, to establish a rural medical residency program. Just this week, they received their accreditation, which is so exciting. They were so excited. And now the process begins to recruit and retain future doctors. The sole purpose of this program is to train health providers in Coos County, an area that struggles to attract talent. When we train these doctors in rural areas, they are more likely to stay after residency and become core members of the community. Any other week, this would be great news: more doctors to treat patients in need. But, today, their future funding through HRSA is at risk, thanks to the uncertainty created by these executive orders.
Training doctors to treat sick or injured patients shouldn’t be a controversial issue, but according to this administration, it is.
Coos County Family Health also uses federal funding to support the victims of domestic violence that come into their practice. Specialized staff offer the victims counseling and support services–things like access to shelter. The staff connects victims with law enforcement and even offers prevention programs in local schools. Without federal funding, they will be forced to lay off these staff members.
I don’t know, does the Administration think that domestic violence survivors are unworthy of our support? Does this administration believe that causing chaos is more important than protecting our most vulnerable? Maybe this is what President Trump meant when he said he wanted disrupters. I don’t believe this is what the public wanted.
Mental health programs are also at risk. New Hampshire’s suicide rate is higher than the national average, and we need every available resource to help address this issue.
Northern Human Services and the National Alliance on Mental Illness use funding from the Garrett Lee Smith Suicide Prevention Grant to provide afterschool support to youth experiencing suicidal ideation or those who have recently attempted suicide. We are literally talking about taking away services from children who are thinking about committing suicide. I heard from the folks at NAMI, the New Hampshire Alliance on Mental Illness. They almost in tears when they talked about what was going to happen if they couldn’t serve these kids who need help.
And there is also navigating recovery, offering around-the-clock substance use disorder services in the city of Laconia. They are a small nonprofit, and they make use of every dollar they get by offering 24/7 support for individuals that have just overdosed, and that includes literally going into the hospital to be with the patient as they recover. They offer wrap-around services like connecting individuals to housing, job opportunities, and childcare so they can find stability as they go through recovery.
53 percent of Navigating recovery’s funding comes from federal sources, including the State Opioid Response Grant Program. I have worked for years to get dollars to the state under that SOR program, including last year when New Hampshire was awarded nearly $30 million.
And I have to say, in the first term of the Trump Administration, President Trump was very supportive of these dollars. We worked with his administration to get additional funding to address the fact that New Hampshire was one of the hardest hit states. So I don’t know why, suddenly, they are willing to put that funding at risk by this freeze, because it has done more to prevent fatal overdoses and support recovery services than any other federal program. Navigating recovery uses those dollars on the ground. Without it, they would only have weeks before they start laying off staff and stop offering services.
Despite what this administration claims, it is the individuals who will pay the price of this uncertainty and chaos. This spending freeze is yet another example of the Administration ignoring how their policies affect individuals’ peace of mind, the livelihoods and the health of Americans at risk.
And then we are seeing broader attacks by the Office of Management and Budget on federal employees. The Trump Administration didn’t stop at ripping funding away from vulnerable Americans this week. While much of the public’s focus has been held by that order, they have continued their relentless attack on federal employees.
Over 2 million civil servants working in thousands of essential fields–from healthcare to law enforcement to national security–who keep our country running, are under attack. And listen, I think we need to be more efficient and more effective, and we may have people who are not doing their jobs the way we want them to, but what this order has done is created confusion over the spending freeze–the hiring freeze instituted by the President’s executive order.
The Administration claims this is temporary, but thousands of Americans who had job offers on the table saw those offers revoked–even those who were ready to fill some of our most urgent vacancies, like at the VA. Even though the Department of Veterans Affairs said it would not apply this hiring freeze to many VA positions dedicated to providing veterans’ healthcare and benefits, many crucial programs that veterans depend on will not be able to hire staff to serve our veterans.
For example, the VA will not be hiring caseworkers who help veterans get into permanent housing and related support. They won’t be able to hire the personnel that literally keep the lights on and buildings running, such as fire protection, housekeeping, plumbing, boiler plant operation, laundry services, and other essential roles.
And we should remember that, year after year, the VA has had challenges in addressing these critical gaps. Last year, the VA reported almost 3,000 severe occupational staffing shortages. But that didn’t stop this administration from pulling every pending job offer the day they took office. And while some have been reinstated, others are still in limbo. In just one example, VA employees at a facility focused on research and care for veterans with late-stage cancer were told their jobs were under review and they may be terminated altogether. Now, I know everybody in this chamber believes that we have made a commitment to those who have served this country in uniform, and we don’t want to fail our veterans when they return home and enter civilian life. So how does this firing of people who take care of them help us fulfill that commitment?
And then, if we want to talk about jobs that keep Americans safe, let’s talk about keeping planes from falling out of the sky or colliding on runways. I worked closely with the National Air Traffic Control Union and the FAA’s collaborative resource working group to adopt a new staffing model in last year’s FAA reauthorization bill.
We have a significant number of air traffic controllers in New Hampshire. They do a great job of keeping people in the flying public safe as they enter North America, all the way down to New York, in some of the most congested airspaces in the country. Now, the FAA made good progress in hiring last year as a result. They are still more than 3,500 controllers, however, short of their staffing target, and the controllers we do have work 6-day weeks, 10-hour days on a good week. They are exhausted; they are overworked; and they face severe mental health challenges as a result.
The FAA estimated that 10 percent of the federal air traffic controller workforce would depart last year as a result of these conditions. And despite this, these air traffic controllers still haven’t been told conclusively whether or not air traffic controllers are exempt from the hiring freeze.
Now, if preventing us from filling shortages and taking care of some of our most vulnerable wasn’t enough, OMB is actively trying to get rid of the civil servants we do have. This week, millions of federal employees received emails offering to pay their salaries for the rest of the fiscal year in exchange for resigning now–and that included every single air traffic controller in the country.
Now, you might be asking yourselves why, when we are short more than 3,500 air traffic controllers, did we offer to pay the ones we have not to work? Well, like the hiring freeze, this order is an irresponsible, reckless, nontargeted effort that could have devastating consequences for critical positions.
What’s more, they are trying to convince us that this will save money, making it clear that even if we lose thousands of employees with no plans to replace them, we will be better off.
Well, that is bad news for tourism in New Hampshire, for those who work closely with U.S. Forest service personnel and depend on sound management of the White Mountain National Forest, and it is bad news for people who value clean air and clean water.
This message was also sent to more than 780,000 civilian employees who work for the department of defense. In New Hampshire, we have almost 8,000 civilians who work at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard that we share with the state of Maine. There are four public shipyards in the United States. Our employees in Portsmouth have the best on-time, on-budget record of any of the public shipyards. These employees contribute to the maintenance of our nuclear submarines, an essential tenet of our national security and a crucial capability to deter major conflict. Any impact to their workforce will strain a shipbuilding industrial base that is already saturated with demand to meet the requirements of our navy.
The bottom line: if the shipyard can’t get boats to the fleet on time, our nation is less safe.
The freeze on federal assistance also affects critical programs that support men and women in uniform, including DOD’s financial assistance and grant programs that support servicemembers and their families.
This administration has said repeatedly that it wants to “restore the warrior ethos” at the Pentagon. I don’t know about you, but slashing our defense workforce doesn’t help me sleep any better at night. I don’t think that restores the warrior ethos.
So in conclusion–I see my other colleagues here, and I know they are waiting to speak–the actions this week have only created confusion, chaos, and stress. That is the best-case scenario, if it ends right now. But if not, if the Trump Administration and Elon Musk get their way and cut these programs, working Americans will be the ones to suffer the most.
The need for housing, sewers, and childcare doesn’t go away when this administration says they don’t want to pay the bills. These costs just get pushed down to towns and end up coming out of people’s paychecks. It ends up being paid on the backs of our local taxpayers.
Now, again, the Administration tried to walk this back by rescinding Monday’s memo, but then they added confusion by claiming that the underlying funding freeze was still in place. And they are unable to answer basic questions about who and what will be affected.
Maybe it is just me and the hundreds of Granite Staters whom I have heard from, but if you are going to stop all the critical funding that helps seniors, children, and families across this country, you need a better answer than we’re hearing from this White House.
Instead, what we heard during the white house briefing–when asked one of these basic questions, Americans were told: we’ll check on that and get back to you.
So to Granite Staters who have called my office in distress, wondering what this far-reaching, unprecedented move means for their lives and their livelihoods: don’t worry. The White House is going to get back to you.
That’s outrageous–and this, despite not one but two federal judges who have ordered the White House to stop holding these funds. The Administration has made it clear that they intend to move forward with vague, irresponsible executive orders that jeopardize billions in infrastructure, energy, healthcare, workforce, and educational investments.
Hard-working families, businesses, and nonprofits have been calling my office asking for clarity, and this administration hasn’t been willing to provide any.
Common sense calls for all of us to work on a bipartisan basis to help our constituents to put an end to the chaos and uncertainty that has been created by this administration in only its second week.
I hope we can do that.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
On Monday, the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced a sweeping executive order pausing almost all forms of federal assistance to states, nonprofits, non-governmental organizations and more. Senator Shaheen immediately condemned the move and emphasized the impact it will have on communities. The full list that agencies were directed to review encompasses over 2,600 assistance programs, including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP), Women, Infants and Children (WIC), community health centers, the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), transportation and highway funding, energy assistance programs, water infrastructure funding, State Opioid Targeted Response grants, GI Bill, veteran compensation for service connected disabilities, Section 8 vouchers, school breakfast and lunch, Title I education grants, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Head Start.
Source: United States Senator for New Hampshire Jeanne Shaheen
(Washington, DC) – U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), a top member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), led 18 of her colleagues on SASC and the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense—U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Ranking Member of SASC, Patty Murray (D-WA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Gary Peters (D-MI), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Angus King (I-ME), Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI)—in releasing the following statement on the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) rescission of policy that allowed service members to get reimbursed for travel and transportation for non-covered reproductive care. Earlier this week the Senator’s office obtained a memo that updates the Joint Travel Regulations to rescind this policy.
“This decision strips away service members’ ability to access the reproductive care they need, which is nothing short of abhorrent. It runs contrary to a core goal of the Department of Defense – to ensure the health and wellbeing of all our service members so that our force remains ready at all times to protect Americans and keep this nation safe.
“U.S. service members have no control over where they are stationed and what state laws may govern their bodies. The policy that the Department of Defense took away from our servicewomen and military families provided them the ability to travel to another state to seek out the care they need. Rescinding that does nothing to enhance military readiness.
“At a time when we are already facing military recruitment and retention challenges, we should do all we can to assure those who answer the call to serve America that we will do everything in our power to support them and their families. Instead, this extreme action does the opposite and sends a message to servicewomen—who make up more than 17 percent of our military’s active duty—that they are not as valuable as their male counterparts.
“We will do everything in our power to mitigate the impact that this extreme decision will have on members of our military and ensure their health and safety comes first.”
Last Congress, Shaheen introduced the Protecting Service Members and Military Families’ Access to Health Care Act – legislation that would codify the DoD’s February 16, 2023 policy to ensure service members and their families can access non-covered reproductive health care, including abortion services, regardless of the state in which they are stationed.
The people of Dunedin have won in an almost year-long battle to have their hospital confirmed, but National’s delays have cost dearly.
“Though there are fewer beds than originally planned, this is a win for the people of the Southern region,” Labour health infrastructure spokesperson Tracey McLellan said.
“We have always said there is money to pay for this hospital, and the announcement today proves National was trying to make savings at the cost of good healthcare for the Southern region.
“Together we have fought hard against National’s attempts to scale back New Dunedin Hospital. The people of the Southern region deserve a state-of-the-art hospital that meets their needs now and into the future.
“According to one estimate, the Government’s poor negotiation and delays cost $100,000 per day while it sat still. This is money that should have been spent improving healthcare.
“The building of the new hospital, which Labour began and paid for, falls short of the promises National made during the election campaign, but it is the best of a bad situation.
“We’ll be watching closely to make sure this Government actually delivers on their promise and doesn’t try to cut corners down the line, both in Dunedin and at other hospitals which they said were threatened by the Dunedin project,” Tracey McLellan said.
Strength in numbers is what gathered many at the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation hall recently. Many are workers for Delta Air Lines in and around Minneapolis and St. Paul, and they all could agree on one thing – costs for everyday living are getting out of hand.
“No matter what part of the plane you’re at, eggs cost the same, rent costs the same, no matter what part of the plane you’re working on,” said Marcia Howard, President of the Minnesota Federation of Teachers. “Collectively, how are we going to stand? Side to side, shoulder to shoulder, and I am telling you, it’s going to be here.”
A packed union hall already had many standing side to side, shoulder to shoulder, just to hear speakers.
WATCH:Delta workers push for a vote to unionize in MNKARE-TV Minneapolis
U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum and Campaign Manager Raquel Sidie-Wagner for U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, spoke about how powerful and mighty a union could be for Delta ramp, cargo, and tower workers, who are organizing with the IAM Union, and their siblings who are Delta flight attendants, organizing with the AFA-CWA, across the country.
The push is on to ensure that union authorization cards signed are less than one year old.
“As long as you keep fighting you’re gonna win. We are absolutely going to win,” IAM Associate Organizer Tiffany Lopez told the prospective members.
She, along with other organizers working on the Delta organizing campaign, put this rally together to keep people together and focused on what a unionized Delta workforce could accomplish.
“There is nothing wrong with wanting more,” said Lopez. “There is nothing wrong with needing and demanding the respect you deserve.”
Rob LaVigne, a Delta ramp worker in Minneapolis, spoke to the crowd as his daughter, Aubrielle, looked on.
“Sweetie, I am going to say some words. Don’t repeat them,” said LaVigne.
He asked if anyone in the hall thinks it’s fair that Delta’s healthcare coverage, which covers his daughter, has changed three times in the past four years.
“I am going to talk about respect,” said LaVgine. “Do you feel respected by Delta Air Lines? Respect is not fearing that you are going to lose your full time schedule every six months because the company wants to make $4.7 billion in profit, instead of $4.6 billion. They come to the ramp to make cuts.”
“It’s not a movement trying to crush the company into oblivion,” said LaVigne. “We’re trying to raise up this airline and raise up the workers that made the airline.”
“A strong union makes company management better,” said IAM Air Transport Territory General Vice President Richie Johnsen. “If the company’s relationship with their workers has power and meaning, they have to respect that workforce when decisions are made. These workers are trying to organize so that they have power and a voice on the job. I am so proud that the IAM is helping with that movement.”
Amanda Goodman Berry knows what it’s like to try to move Delta management to make change. As a Delta ramp worker in Minneapolis, she championed a campaign to update a company MLK Day video including not only his “I Have A Dream Speech,” but the foundation of his work building up the working class and standing for worker rights.
“Dr. King was organizing sanitation workers back in 1968 [hours before his assassination], so I invited Delta to match their words to what they were saying,” said Goodman Berry. “The solidarity of the various people that came out today was very important to us. This was a powerhouse of leaders, groups, and people supporting the [Delta] ramp know that we will 100% get to the finish line with the IAM, and the IAM has given us unwavering support.”
It’s a numbers game, and for Delta ramp, cargo and tower, along with flight attendants – it’s game on.
Production begins at CH4 Global’s first full-scale EcoPark
ADELAIDE, Australia – January 30, 2024 – CH4 Global, Inc., will today officially open phase one of its first full-scale EcoPark, where it has begun to grow and process Asparagopsis in 10 large-scale cultivation ponds with a combined capacity of 2 million litres – capable of producing 80 metric tonnes of the seaweed each year.
Over the next year, the facility will expand to 100 ponds capable of producing enough Asparagopsis to serve 45,000 cattle per day – a significant step toward meeting demand from CH4 Global’s existing commercial partners in Australia and beyond. With additional investment, the facility could eventually expand to 500 ponds capable of serving hundreds of thousands of cattle per day.
Built at Louth Bay, 23km south of Port Lincoln on Eyre Peninsula, the EcoPark consists of research and development facilities, a seedling hatchery, patented in-land growth ponds, and harvesting and drying technologies to convert Asparagopsis into CH4 Global’s Methane Tamer products – allowing end-to-end production.
The EcoPark will sustainably grow methane-reducing Asparagopsis at scale. Asparagopsis, which is a red seaweed native to South Australia, drastically reduces methane emissions from cows by up to 90 per cent.
CH4 Global founder and Chief Executive Dr Steve Meller said the EcoPark was the first commercial facility of its kind, enabling the scalable propagation of Asparagopsis to meet the needs of feedlots under contract. CH4 Global’s system delivers consistent, high-quality production at a fraction of the cost, enabling profitability throughout the value chain without government subsidies.
With its proprietary pond-based system, CH4 Global aims to reduce production costs by up to 90 per cent compared to conventional tank-based methods, enabling rapid scaling while positioning CH4 Global to deliver its feed supplement at a price point that ensures profitability throughout the agricultural value chain.
“The EcoPark allows us to now grow Asparagopsis at-scale, providing more Methane Tamer to the feedlots and farmers we are already working with, and to meet the needs of the increasing number of organisations contacting us to help them change the feeding habits of their cows as we start bending the climate curve,” Dr Meller said.
“We are well and truly working towards eliminating one billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions and reaching 150 million cattle by 2030 through our local and international partnerships with feedlots and farmers, and it’s fantastic to see beef from these cows hitting shelves in Australia and heading overseas.”
Dr Meller said the Louth Bay EcoPark was an essential step on the climate journey and would be positive for the Eyre Peninsula community and economy.
CH4 Global has committed to preventing the creation of one gigatonne of CO2 emissions by 2032.
To do so, CH4 Global needs to reach 150 million cattle —10 per cent of the world’s total.“Along with supporting farmers in South Australia, Queensland and overseas to reduce emissions, we’re working closely with the Eyre Peninsula community by having worked with local contractors to build the EcoPark, sourcing local materials and providing regional jobs.”
CH4 Global has also been working with First Nations communities across South Australia, including with the planting of native species and on a land management plan, and providing a gathering space on-site.
CH4 Global has implemented a sustainable design framework for Louth Bay and future EcoParks, guiding the use and management of energy and natural resources, waste and GHG emissions, and efficient use of eco-friendly materials.
As part of its sustainable design framework, CH4 Global has remediated the 14ha site and will be responsible for 13km of beach. Remediation has included removing 5,000 tonnes of concrete tanks – crushed and recycled; 11.76 tonnes of HDPE to be recycled in Adelaide, 10 tonnes of plastic aquaculture trays and other plastic equipment for filtering water and other purposes, which have been rehomed and reused within the community; and sent five tonnes of steel to recycling.
About CH4 Global
CH4 Global, founded in 2018, is on an urgent mission to bend the climate curve, through collaboration with strategic partners worldwide. We deliver market-disruptive products that enable the food industry value chain to radically reduce GHG emissions.
The company’s first innovation, Methane Tamer feed additives for feedlot cattle, harnesses the power of Asparagopsis seaweed to reduce enteric methane emissions by up to 90 per cent.
If you scroll through YouTube and watch sporting contests from yesteryear, one of the first things you’ll likely notice is how slow the games are compared to modern sports.
Not just the athletes’ speed (or lack of), but the pace of ball movement.
There is no universal definition of game speed, but it is often measured using metrics such as passing rate, ball velocity or average player movement speed during games.
Faster ball and average player speeds have been shown in many field sports including AFL, soccer and basketball.
Faster action followed by longer recovery breaks is the way many sports have evolved over the past few decades.
In National Hockey League ice hockey games, for example, there are around 300 player rotations (shifts) per team. Shift lengths decreased by 7% to about 45 seconds each during a 10-year period to 2010 as the game sped up.
Shorter shifts mean higher game speed before players can recover on the bench.
Spectators report a preference for fast action and seem happy to have this interrupted by longer breaks as players catch their breath.
What about speed in soccer?
I recently studied this phenomenon in World Cup soccer matches. I found passing rates and ball speed were consistently increasing for both men and women over multiple World Cup tournaments.
The study showed passing rates increased by 19% for men and 26% for women across the past nine tournaments. Average ball speed increased by 7% for men and 18% for women over the same time.
It is clear men’s and women’s soccer matches are speeding up.
The benefits of fast attacking play
The need for speed is driven by scoring benefits: if a team can move the ball often and with accuracy, this reduces the time for opposition teams to organise defensively.
Disorganised defensive structures are easier to penetrate, as gaps open among opposition players.
For example, faster passing rates in basketball have been linked to more scoring attempts and baskets scored. This is especially crucial after a turnover, when defences are poorly organised.
Faster play requires quick and precise decision-making, such as perfect timing to move to the best position to receive the ball, or to draw dangerous opposition players away from the action.
This quicker play requires delivering better skills at high speeds, such as catching or trapping the ball on the run. It involves anticipating where to move and when to react with stealth-like movements.
It also involves greater physical fitness and the ability to repeat high-intensity efforts – a fitter player can recover quicker and accumulate less fatigue. This can help the athlete use optimal power and with fewer skill errors.
On top of that, evidence shows player “density” is increasing in many field sports, which both reduces the time to react and mandates superior skills in the congested player traffic.
Accurate passing and precision timing through this crowded space is essential.
Even moving your own body through clogged space requires agility and power. Because of this, much of the training time for professionals is dedicated to games on reduced field space to improve these requirements and to refine decision-making skills.
In elite sport, those who are efficient in these areas generally remain in the sport while others fall by the wayside.
Managers in the English Premier League look for a minimal passing efficiency (finding a teammate with each pass) of 70%. Less than this can have disastrous consequences for the athlete.
Moving offensively with speed means the attacking team is also vulnerable to counterattack if they lose possession: when an attacking team turns the ball over, they, in turn, are out of (defensive) position and vulnerable to quick movement by the opposition.
So knowing when to move fast and when to progress more steadily are also key skills and regularly rehearsed.
Colliding with opposition players involves increased kinetic energy that must be absorbed by athletes’ bodies. This can result in bone fractures and concussion rates that are elevated with fast impact forces.
The increasing speed of sports could have several impacts in the future, namely in the talent identification and player recruitment space, and in women’s sports.
Due to genetic constraints, athletes generally can’t improve their speed as easily as other physical attributes like endurance or strength. This means recruiters are likely to prioritise fast athletes in a spiralling pace race.
In some sports, including our soccer study, the speed of women’s sport was found to be increasing at a faster rate than men’s.
Over a comparatively short history of professional sport, women have demonstrated dramatic and impressive gains. This may mean the speed and style of women’s sports will increasingly resemble the speed and style of the men’s games.
Kevin Norton has received funding from sporting organisations including AFL, NRL, ARU, IRB, ESL.
The number of passenger trips operated by China’s urban rail transit networks in 2024 grew by around 2.8 billion, or 9.5 percent from a year earlier, official data showed.
A total of 32.24 billion passenger trips were handled by the network last year, according to the Ministry of Transport.
By Dec. 31, 2024, the total operating length of 325 urban rail transit lines across 54 Chinese cities reached 10,945.6 kilometers.
Last year, China added 748 kilometers of new rail lines, with 18 new urban rail transit lines becoming operational.
Building on the remarkable progress achieved in recent years, China’s commercial reusable rocket developers are poised to reach new heights over the next 12 months.
Guowang and Spacesail, two of China’s major low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite internet constellations, will have tens of thousands of satellites in orbit in the future, creating a robust market foundation for the country’s commercial launches.
Vast market demand will serve as a powerful driving force, propelling continuous innovation and breakthroughs in reusable rocket technology, while accelerating the widespread application of new technologies, materials, processes and testing methods, said Meng Xianbo, chief strategy officer of Galactic Energy, a Beijing-based rocket developer.
Galactic Energy is currently working on two types of reusable rockets. The PALLAS-1 is a two-stage reusable rocket fueled by liquid oxygen and kerosene. Weighing around 290 tonnes at launch, it can carry up to 8 tonnes to LEO. This rocket is set to make its debut flight in the first half of 2025, kicking off commercial operations with two planned missions this year.
Based on the PALLAS-1 design, the PALLAS-2 rocket features a boosted LEO payload capacity of 30 tonnes and is expected to wrap up assembly and testing in the course of 2025.
LandSpace’s Zhuque-3 rocket, meanwhile, completed a 10-kilometer vertical takeoff and landing recovery test in September 2024. This mission used a single-stage rocket with liquid oxygen and methane engines, marking the first time a Chinese rocket had completed vertical takeoff and landing recovery.
The company revealed that the Zhuque-3 rocket is slated for its inaugural launch in 2025 — with three missions planned for the year.
“These launches will deliver a combined payload capacity of around 60 tonnes, and we are targeting the successful recovery of the rocket’s first stage within these three missions,” said Zhang Changwu, CEO of LandSpace.
The commercial reusable rocket SQX-2Y, developed by i-Space, completed a vertical take-off and landing flight test on Nov. 2, 2023. Subsequently, it conducted its second flight test mission on Dec. 10, 2023.
The company said valuable data and experience gained from these two SQX-2Y flight tests will contribute to key technological innovations for its medium-to-large reusable liquid oxygen-methane launch vehicle, named SQX-3.
According to the company, the SQX-3 launch vehicle is scheduled to perform its first orbital launch and recovery test mission in December 2025.
Following the recovery of its first stage, it will undergo maintenance and inspection before being equipped with a new second stage. The rocket is then planned to conduct its first reuse flight test mission in June 2026, said Ji Haibo, deputy general manager of the company.
The maritime recovery platform for the SQX-3 rocket’s maiden flight mission commenced construction in November 2024, Ji added.
Another rocket startup, Deep Blue Aerospace, announced last year that it plans to carry out commercial suborbital flights in 2027, using the company’s reusable rocket Nebula-1.
The oxygen/kerosene-fueled Nebula-1, the company’s first reusable launch vehicle, completed 10 of the 11 key verification tasks during its first high-altitude vertical recovery flight test on Sept. 22, 2024.
The Nebula-1 rocket will conduct extensive high-altitude recovery tests in 2025 and 2026. These tests aim to verify the feasibility and stability of the technology, while also accumulating critical data for ultimate orbit entry and recovery, according to the company.
Huo Liang, founder and chairman of this company, said advancements in rocket reusability will drive down space travel costs — making it accessible to the general public rather than remaining a niche luxury.
“We look forward to sending more people to space, inspiring broader interest in cosmic exploration, and expanding humanity’s understanding of the universe,” Huo added.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Scientists comment on final draft guidance from NICE on the use of exagamglogene autotemcel (exa-cel) for severe sickle cell disease.
Dr Diana Hernandez, director of immune and advanced therapies at UK stem cell charity Anthony Nolan, said:
“Today’s decision from NICE to grant access, on the NHS, to the UK’s first ever CRISPR-based therapy for some patients with sickle cell disease, represents a leap forward in the treatment of this debilitating and life-threatening condition. Sickle cell disease is caused by abnormally shaped red blood cells that can block blood vessels, causing fatigue, chronic pain and increased risk of infection. By modifying the DNA of the patient’s own stem cells so they produce healthy red blood cells, the treatment provides a ‘functional cure’ for people who otherwise have limited options.
“This treatment offers hope to thousands of patients in the UK, the majority of whom are from African and African-Caribbean backgrounds and have experienced years of feeling ignored, and is a glimpse into the exciting possibilities of gene therapies to treat diseases that have previously been considered incurable.”
Dr Alena Pance, Senior Lecturer in Genetics, University of Hertfordshire, said:
“Casgevy (exagamglogene autotemcel) is based on the innovative gene-editing tool CRISPR, which won its inventors the Nobel Prize in 2020
“This approach is a great medical advancement because gene-editing may represent a possible cure rather than a treatment of this inherited genetic disease and stem cell technology makes it possible to use patient-specific cells which avoid immunological issues.
“The background is that sickle cell disease is caused by mutation of one of the proteins that form haemoglobin. This is the main component of red blood cells that transports oxygen around the body. In adulthood, it consists of 4 globin proteins, 2 alpha and 2 beta, that form a tetramer with an iron core which binds the oxygen. During development however, the haemoglobin in the foetus is made with gamma globin instead of beta globin. This is because Gamma globin has higher affinity for oxygen, which is less abundant in the womb. At birth, there is a switch that silences Gamma globin which is no longer made and induces Beta globin to be made instead.
“When Beta globin is mutated long inflexible chains of haemoglobin form, called sickle haemoglobin that leads to a change in the morphology of the red blood cells which also become stiff and get stuck in small capillaries. This causes pain and loss of red blood cells or anaemia, which increases in situations of high need or use of oxygen, such as exercise or high altitude.
“What this therapy does is to switch off the factor that silences Gamma globin so that it can be produced in the red blood cells and substitute the faulty Beta globin. Because it is a blood disease, the gene-editing can be performed in the stem cells from the bone marrow from which all the cells in the blood originate. This means that the stem cells are extracted from the patient, modified and expanded in the lab and then put back into the patient where they will be able to reconstitute the blood. As a consequence, there is no immunological difference between the modified cells and the patient necessitating immunosuppressing medication for life and once the modified stem cells establish themselves in the bone marrow of the patient, they can repopulate the bone marrow and produce Gamma globin red blood cells technically for ever. An additional advantage this strategy has is that because it does not aim to correct the mutation (fix the faulty beta globin) it can be generally applied not just to sickle cell disease but also to beta-thalassemia. This is because there is a wide range of mutations in the beta globin gene and so fixing it would become patient-specific which would be even more costly and difficult.”
“There are some set backs to this approach and it is certain that the technology will continue improving, but at this moment in time, it is the greatest advance seen so far in the application of these technologies to health.”
Prof Ewan Birney, Deputy Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and Director of EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), said:
“This is an exciting development for practical CRISPR based gene therapy. After impressive clinical trials worldwide, the technology provides a way for certain sickle cell disease individuals to have a far better life. This CRISPR based therapy uses an interesting molecular mechanism, where the gene therapy acts on a different, related gene (fetal haemoglobin), boosting this gene’s expression in adulthood which mitigates the effect of the sickle cell changed adult haemoglobin. The mechanism was discovered by genetic studies in particular from cohorts in Sub-Saharan Africa and people with recent African ancestries.
“Looking ahead, this technology has the potential to treat many other rare diseases with precise genetic diagnoses.”
Prof Felicity Gavins, Professor of Pharmacology,Brunel University of London, said:
“The approval of Exa-cel for NHS use in England is a very exciting moment, not only because this marks the first approval of a CRISPR-based gene therapy for SCD in the NHS, but also because it offers a potentially curative treatment for eligible patients. By addressing the genetic cause of SCD, Exa-cel reduces or eliminates vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs), decreases hospitalisations, and improves quality of life.
“Of the 15,000 people in England with SCD, approximately 1,750 may be eligible for Exa-cel treatment. The therapy works by editing the patient’s BCL11A gene to reactivate fetal haemoglobin production, preventing red blood cells from sickling and blocking blood flow which cause VOCs and disease complications.
“However, while Exa-cel is a breakthrough, it is not a cure for all SCD patients, and uncertainties remain about its long-term effectiveness, safety and accessibility. It is critical to continue funding research to develop treatment that benefit the broader SCD population and address remaining challenges in care.”
Professor Laurence D. Hurst,Professor of Evolutionary Genetics, The Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath, said:
“The recommendation of exa-cel (alias Casgevy, alias Exagamglogene autotemcel) by NICE is a potential step change for sufferers (and their carers) of a common genetic disorder, sickle cell disease (SCD) that particularly affects UK individuals with a Caribbean and Black African ancestry. It will come as a very welcome reversal of a prior draft recommendation (March 2024) by many within the at-risk communities.
“Part of NICE’s recommendation was based on the observation that the disorder is especially prevent in ethnic minority backgrounds and seeks to redress inequality in health access. This is a good news day for sufferers of severe SCD and for these communities.”
Why is there a need for a “cure” for sickle cell disease?
“Current treatments may be considered the equivalent of plastering over a wound repeatedly, rather than getting to the cause of the wound and curing it.
“SCD patients need regular blood transfusions and with that treatment to absorb excess iron. Some qualify for a drug therapy, Hydroxycarbamide, also used as in cancer chemotherapy, that reduces VOC rates. This increases rate of production of foetal globin and reduces red cell stickiness. There are very few treatments to stop symptoms and what is available often has intolerable side effects. A further issue is that while treatments may reduce VOC frequency they tend to increase pain associated with each VOC. They do not address the underlying cause.”
“Stem cell transfusion – the best current “cure” – is potentially different as you are replacing the cells that make red blood cells in the patient with those from a donor who doesn’t have SCD. However, only 15% of patients have a potential donor and this treatment can lead to immune rejection (graft versus host disease).
“Exa-cel is potentially a life-long cure – the patients can make their own non SCD inducing blood, thus immune rejection should not be an issue.”
How does this CRISPR therapy work?
“For many single gene genetic disorders gene therapy is now being actively researched and, in some cases, making it to clinic. To date the successful ones, have taken the strategy of adding in a copy of the properly functioning version of the gene (as in recent gene therapies for haemophilia A and B). Exa-cel is different as it involves “editing” your own DNA, not adding genes.
“It relies on the fact that as foetuses our haemoglobin was different. Indeed, foetal haemoglobin is a little better than the adult version at carrying oxygen. Adult haemoglobin consists of two beta globins and two alpha globins. In foetuses we use gamma globin instead of beta globin. Shortly after birth a protein BCL11A helps in the switch from foetal to adult haemoglobin, from gamma to beta. Exa-cel edits the gene for BCL11A preventing it from being made, and in so doing forces the cells to upregulate gamma globin so making more foetal haemoglobin.
“It does this by editing a part of the switch that turns the BCL11A gene on in developing blood cells. This causes BCL11A to not be made which in turn allows gamma globin to be produced, as BCL11A switches gamma globin off. As such – it is a CRISPR mediated gene edit – it is unlike the standard mode of gene therapy which involves addition of the correct gene. The treatment involve removing relevant cells from the patient, editing in the lab and replacing them into the patient.
“Given its mode of action it is a potential therapy for any genetic disease involving badly functioning beta-globin, notably sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia.
“Importantly it is also likely that making gamma globin is safe – it is our own protein. In addition, most of us fail to fully inactivate the foetal/gamma version and so well all have a bit of gamma globin. Indeed, with conditions like SCD, the higher the level of gamma globin the lesser the symptoms.”
The therapy is life transforming
“The evidence for the efficacy and safety of Casgevy for SCD is good, although sample numbers are low. Base line the patients had 2.6 VOCs per year. Of 43 patients 29 were followed long enough. 28 of 29 had no VOCs for at least a year. None were hospitalised.
“There is a further issue, however, that it can be difficult to collect cells in patients with SCD and some of those not followed up were because the treatment couldn’t be given.
What is the new decision?
“This new decision is not a statement about safety and efficacy. The therapy has been approved for use in the UK (late 2023), EU (spring 2024) and USA (late 2023) on safety and efficacy grounds. What is new is that NICE now recommends funding this with “managed access*” via the NHS as it is deemed adequately cost effective (or rather it was happy with the high level of uncertainty on cost effectiveness given the circumstances). This is a reversal of its prior draft recommendation in March 2024.
“It is restricted to those for whom a stem cell transplant donor cannot be found and with severe SCD ie recurrent VOCs meaning 2 or more in the prior 2 years.
“The defence for the opening of access was based on the health inequalities faced by people with SCD, the technology being innovative and the fact that prior decision had failed to capture the quality of life of the carers.
“Earlier this year NICE approved the same therapy for beta thalassemia -also owing to beta glogin issues- for a restricted number of patients.”
What does the treatment cost?
“The treatment is a one-off procedure. The headline cost per treatment £1,651,000 but the actual cost to the NHS is a commercial secret.”
What are the uncertainties?
“There are two main uncertainties:
“First, being a new treatment how long it will last is unknown. Why the treatment might revert is unclear but only time will tell.
“The second is whether there are downstream side effects. CRISPR as an application for example involves send a molecule to cut DNA at a designated site in our DNA. Sometimes, however, the cuts also happen at sites we didn’t want to have cut. These are so-called “off-target” effects. The early data from the research team behind found no evidence for such off-target effects but they remain a possibility. More classical forms of gene therapy – involving adding genes to our DNA – have been associated with induction of cancer and so the field is naturally cautious.”
What is SCD?
“Sickle cell disease is a genetic disease associated with a different form of a gene and its derived protein that make up part of the molecular that transports oxygen from the lungs to the body, heamoglobin, in our red blood cells. The affected gene/protein is “beta globin”.
“Sufferers have pain 4 days out of every seven and unpredictable episodes of severe pain, termed vaso-occlusive crises [VOCs] that can require hospitalization. Over 2 years about 2/3 of sufferers need emergency care 2 to 3 times and about a quarter spend 1-2 weeks in hospital. Higher rates of both define severe SCD. It causes ongoing anaemia (lack of red blood cells) and widespread organ damage. Even with access to medical support, life expectancy is typically around 50 years.”
Why is SCD so prevalent in ethnic minorities?
“Globally locations with endemic malaria have higher rates of the disorder. This is because individuals with a mix of beta globin genes (we all have two versions, one inherited from mother one from father) are less likely to die young from malaria. This selection favouring individuals with a mix of beta-globins maintains the two versions of the beta globin gene at relatively high frequencies. However, it also means that the rate at which individuals will inherit two of the SCD causing version of the gene is also high – if mum and dad were both carriers a quarter of their kids will get SCD. Having two SCD versions is needed for the full blown SCD. In sub-Saharan Africa up to 1-3% of the population suffer SCD making it a remarkably prevalent genetic disease.”
Professor David Rees, Professor of Paediatric Sickle Cell Disease, King’s College London, said:
“It is encouraging that Exa-cel has been approved for use to treat patients with sickle cell disease in England, particularly as it is based on discoveries made at King’s College London by Dr Stephan Menzel and Professor Swee Lay Thein. The treatment uses CRISPR gene editing technology to increase the level of fetal haemoglobin in people with sickle cell disease, which has a major effect in reducing the severity of the condition. The treatment is not curative in the traditional sense of the word, in that the patients still have some features of sickle cell disease, but early studies suggest that successfully treated patients have very few symptoms of the condition, at least in the medium term.
“Exa-cel has been approved for patients getting episodes of acute pain over the age of 12 years, and potentially more than 5000 people with sickle cell disease may be eligible for this in the UK. However, it is difficult to know how many people will actually benefit, because of the very high cost and potential toxicity of the treatment. Exa-cel treatment still requires very strong chemotherapy, similar to having a bone marrow transplant, which causes problems with reduced fertility and sometimes more serious complications, and it seems likely that it will most benefit patients with severe and progressive problems caused by sickle cell disease.
“Despite these concerns, the availability of Exa-cel is a major advance and offers a really important new treatment option for some patients with sickle cell disease. Excitingly, advances in gene editing are happening very rapidly at the moment and it seems likely that cheaper, safer and more effective forms of gene editing will emerge for sickle cell disease over the coming years, offering the prospect of a curative treatment which is universally applicable, even in low income countries where the majority of patients live.”
NICE’s final draft guidance on Exagamglogene autotemcel for treating severe sickle cell disease in people 12 years and over was published at 00:01 UK time on Friday 31 January 2025.
Declared interests
Professor David Rees: “I don’t think I have any significant conflicts of interest.”
Prof Ewan Birney: No conflict of interest.
Dr Alena Pance: No conflicts.
For all other experts, no response to our request for DOIs was received.
Released by: Minister for Regional Transport and Roads
The proposed upgrade to Mandalong Road at Morisset, southwest of Newcastle, has taken another step forward with the community consultation report for the preferred design display now published.
The Australian Government is investing $56 million and the NSW Government is investing $20 million in upgrades to Mandalong Road.
The community and key stakeholders were invited to have their say on the preferred design for the proposed upgrade from 26 June to 4 August last year.
This design includes replacing the existing roundabout at the intersection of Wyee Road and Freemans Drive with traffic lights, a shared path between Ourimbah Street and Gimberts Road, as well as two new bus stops on Dora Street.
The Gimberts Road/Gateway Boulevard roundabout will now be separately upgraded by a private developer.
A total of 202 submissions were received during the display period, including 190 survey responses and 12 emails.
The consultation report includes feedback on the design, operational and network impacts, environmental impacts, project concerns and suggestions.
Feedback received about the preferred design has been considered as work on the concept design and environmental assessment continues.
Timing for construction is yet to be confirmed and is dependent on planning approvals and the finalisation of project costings and funding arrangements.
Consultation will continue with key stakeholders and the community will be kept informed as the project progresses.
Quotes attributable to Federal Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Minister Catherine King:
“Mandalong Road provides a critical link from the M1 Pacific Motorway to Morisset and the southern part of the Lake Macquarie local government area.
“This upgrade will improve traffic flow and safety for about 17,000 road users daily, while helping meet the future needs of an increased population and employment in the Morisset area.
“The upgrade will also support retail, industry, commercial and housing growth along the corridor, with potentially upwards of 5,000 new dwellings in the surrounding area.”
Quotes attributable to NSW Regional Transport and Roads Minister Jenny Aitchison:
“We know this is an important project for the community with more than 200 submissions received during the consultation period.
“As part of the survey, respondents were asked to provide feedback on the level of project importance and support of the preferred design.
“I was pleased to note that 90 per cent of survey respondents believe the project to be very important or important, and more than 80 per cent supported the preferred design.
“I’m proud to be part of a government getting the work done to improve the daily lives of people living in NSW.”
Quotes attributable to Federal Member for Hunter Dan Repacholi:
“These traffic upgrades will be really significant for local and visiting motorists and pedestrians in terms of safety and also minimising delays on their journeys in this part of the lower Hunter.
“We will continue to engage with the NSW Government, key stakeholders and the community to deliver the best option for traffic and pedestrian movement in Morriset.”
Quotes attributable to Member for Lake Macquarie Greg Piper:
“Upgrading Mandalong Road is the most important transport priority in southern Lake Macquarie.
“Like other frustrated locals, I have been calling for a solution to the traffic and safety issues at Mandalong Road for years.
“With its strategic position, the Morisset area is poised to experience a surge in people, jobs, homes and industrial and commercial development. Upgrading Mandalong Road, along with other infrastructure and services, is essential to support this growth and help Morisset realise its full potential.”
Quotes attributable to Duty MLC for Lake Macquarie, Emily Suvaal:
“This is a key step in the upgrade process and I welcome the work the NSW Government, together with the Commonwealth, is doing to improve traffic conditions for motorists in Lake Macquarie.
“The much-needed Mandalong Road upgrades will significantly improve local traffic conditions and this next stage of consultation is vital to getting that work done.”
Attribute to Southern District Crime Manager Detective Inspector Shona Low:
Police have smashed a significant Southland drug operation, thanks to some dodgy-looking crockery intercepted by Customs in Auckland.
Kilograms of drugs, including over 30kg of cannabis, and over $60,000 cash have been seized and two Invercargill men have been arrested and charged.
The operation began at the Auckland International Mail Centre on 6 January 2025, when a package caught the attention of Customs officers. It was declared to contain dining plates, but an X-ray raised suspicions and testing revealed more than 2kg of MDMA had been pressed into plate shape and coated with paint.
The package was addressed to an Invercargill property, and the Southern District Organised Crime Group immediately got to work, gathering information and preparing a search warrant.
On 23 January the Invercargill property was searched, and officers turned up ketamine, cash, ammunition and cannabis. But the most significant discovery was evidence that showed a connection to another Southland address.
Given the quantities of MDMA intercepted at the border and clear signs of a wider drug operation, Police quickly obtained a search warrant for the second property and prepared to search it that same day.
At that address, Police were met with an overwhelming smell of cannabis and found a sophisticated grow set-up, numerous plants, and more than 25kg of high-grade cannabis head, packaged and ready to be sold.
A sizeable amount of a substance, believed to be ketamine, was also located, along with another half-kilogram of MDMA, and more than $60,000 cash.
This is offending on a scale rarely seen in Southland and serious harm has been prevented, thanks to Customs and Police working closely together and acting fast.
This wasn’t someone growing a cannabis plant for their own use. It was an organised, sophisticated drug operation designed to make a profit, without any concern for the people affected or damaged by it. The drug trade feeds people’s addictions and fuels crime by encouraging desperate individuals to steal in order to pay for their next hit.
We know this won’t stop the supply of drugs, it won’t stop organised crime groups or others from trying to profit from addiction, but it will put a noticeable dent in the availability of illegal drugs in the district and the harm caused by them.
We want to thank the highly trained Customs officers whose efforts have contributed to keeping our communities safe.
By the numbers:
18kg (40lb) of high-grade cannabis head
12kg (28lb) of leaf
22 Cannabis plants
431g (15.2oz) of MDMA
0.46g of cocaine
210g (7.4oz) of suspected ketamine
6 rounds of .303 ammo, and a magazine
8 rounds of .300 ammo
250 rounds of .22 ammo
$60,400 in cash
A 38-year-old Invercargill man appeared in the Invercargill District Court on 24 January, charged with:
Supplying ecstasy
Supplying ketamine
Cultivating cannabis
Possession of cannabis for supply
Possession of ecstasy for supply.
He has been remanded in custody.
A 34-year-old Invercargill man appeared in the Invercargill District Court on 28 January, charged with:
FRESNO, Calif. — A federal grand jury returned a three-count indictment today against Rosa Ventura, 34, of Fresno, and Claudia Gonzales, 38, of Fresno, charging them with conspiracy to kidnap, kidnapping, and kidnapping involving a child, Acting U.S. Attorney Michele Beckwith announced.
According to court documents, on May 8, 2024, a woman reported her boyfriend after a domestic violence incident, which resulted in his arrest. In retaliation for calling the police, the boyfriend’s sister, Rosa Ventura, took the woman’s 5-month-old daughter away and drove her and her 9-year-old daughter to an unknown field outside Fresno.
At the field, Ventura’s friend and accomplice, Claudia Gonzales, revealed herself after hiding in the car’s trunk area. Ventura and Gonzales then drove the mother and child straight to Tijuana, Mexico, and stranded them at an unknown bus station in order to dissuade the mother from testifying in the state domestic violence case where she was a victim. The mother and child were held against their will during the drive. At one point, the mother and child attempted to flee at a gas station, but Ventura and Gonzales chased them down and physically forced them back into the car.
This case is the product of an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations and the Fresno Police Department. Assistant United States Attorneys Robert Veneman-Hughes and Cody S. Chapple are prosecuting the case.
The defendants are in custody pending trial. Their next appearance is Feb. 5, 2025, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Erica P. Grosjean for their initial appearance on the indictment.
If convicted, Ventura and Gonzales face a statutory minimum of 20 years to a maximum of life in prison and a $250,000 fine. Any sentence, however, would be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables. The charges are only allegations; the defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Earlier today and throughout the past few weeks, in federal court in Brooklyn, five members and associates of the Luchese organized crime family of La Cosa Nostra pleaded guilty to multiple crimes, including racketeering, money laundering and illegal gambling related to criminal activities throughout New York City. The proceedings were held before United States District Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto. Today, Luchese crime family soldier Anthony Villani pleaded guilty to racketeering, money laundering and illegal gambling. As part of Villani’s plea agreement, he will pay $4 million in forfeiture. His co-defendants have agreed to pay an additional approximately $1 million in forfeiture. Villani and his co-defendants operated a large-scale, illegal online gambling business (the Gambling Business) that operated under the protection of the Luchese crime family across the New York metropolitan area. The gambling business, known as “Rhino Sports,” operated since the early 2000s and brought millions in illicit profits annually.
John J. Durham, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and James E. Dennehy, Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), announced the guilty pleas.
“These guilty pleas represent a victory for the rule of law over the pernicious activities of organized crime that undermine the safety of our communities,” stated United States Attorney Durham. “Illegal gambling businesses require enforcement and protection from mob rivals that carry the persistent threat of violence. However, the defendants’ luck ran out and, thanks to the hard work of the team of prosecutors and investigators, they will be held accountable for their crimes and pay their debt to society.”
FBI Assistant Director in Charge Dennehy stated: “Our investigations involving members of the Five Families don’t make the same headlines as they have historically. However, the men pleading guilty in this case illustrate how entrenched the traditional mafia are in their noxious and familiar criminality. They are less flashy these days – and a lot of that is due to the incredible cunning and tenacity agents and investigators on our FBI New York Westchester Organized Crime Task Force use to pursue members of these organizations.”
As detailed in the indictment and court filings, for over 25 years, Villani has been involved in significant gambling operations, principally based in the Bronx and Westchester, New York, that were affiliated with multiple organized crime families. Villani owned and operated the Gambling Business since at least 2004. The Gambling Business was hosted using servers in Costa Rica and employed local bookmakers to pay and collect winnings. Villani’s bookmakers included members and associates of the Luchese crime family and other La Cosa Nostra families. As part of the scheme, Villani employed trusted individuals, including defendants Louis Tucci, Jr. and Dennis Filizzola, to assist in operating the business and collecting at least $1 million annually. Records obtained of the Gambling Business’s website indicated that Villani’s illegal gambling operation regularly took bets from between 400 and 1,300 bettors each week, most of whom were based in New York City and the metropolitan area. At Villani’s direction, Filizzola took proceeds from the Gambling Business and used them to purchase U.S. Postal Service money orders in false names, which were then made payable to one of Villani’s property companies to appear as legitimate rental payments.
When sentenced, Villani faces up to 20 years in prison. Louis Tucci, Jr., pleaded guilty on January 27, 2025 to illegal sports betting and faces up to five years in prison. Filizzola pleaded guilty on January 21, 2025 to illegal sports betting and money laundering and faces up to five years in prison and up to 20 years in prison on those counts respectively. James Coumoutsos pleaded guilty on January 21, 2025 to illegal sports betting and faces up to five years in prison. Michael Praino pleaded guilty on January 10, 2025 to illegal sports gambling and faces up to five years in prison. A sixth defendant remains at large.
The government’s case is being handled by the Office’s Organized Crime and Gangs Section. Assistant United States Attorney Antoinette N. Rangel is in charge of the prosecution. Assistant United States Attorney Claire S. Kedeshian of the Office’s Asset Recovery Section is handling forfeiture matters.
The Defendants:
ANTHONY VILLANI Age: 60 Elmsford, NY
JAMES COUMOUTSOS (also known as “Quick”) Age: 62 Bronx, NY
DENNIS FILIZZOLA Age: 61 Cortlandt Manor, NY
MICHAEL PRAINO (also known as “Platinum”) Age: 47 Lake Worth, Florida
LOUIS TUCCI, JR. (also known as “Tooch”) Age: 61 Tuckahoe, NY