NewzIntel.com

Category: Vehicles

  • MIL-OSI USA: ‘It’s Alive!’ (and Guilty?): Student Considers Whether Frankenstein’s Monster Could Be Held Liable in Court of Law

    Source: US State of Connecticut

    For 10 weeks this summer, Gianna Socci worked hard for a sole purpose.

    As if her gift was the plunder of information from the stacks of libraries in southwestern Connecticut, piece by piece she stitched together thoughts, contentions, and beliefs, her own cheeks pale with study, as she infused life into the inanimate body that’s become her very own creation.

    “I’d never taken on a beast this size before,” Socci ’25 (CLAS) says. “I would get very stressed out that I wasn’t going to be able to finish this. I wasn’t going to be able to write something that made sense. I wasn’t going to be able to bring this all together and I feared I bit off more than I could chew.”

    Clinging to the hope the next day or the next would bring success, Socci labored to coax to life the 62 pages that have become her greatest academic triumph to date: “Monstrosity on Trial: Claiming Legal Personhood for Frankenstein’s Monster.”

    This is a project Socci conceived nearly two years ago, when as a sophomore she sought to convert her Introduction to Literary Studies course into an honors credit, which requires a larger research project, namely a more in-depth look at one of the books read that semester.

    “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health.” – Victor Frankenstein in describing his work in Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein”

    As an English and political science double major who expects one day to take up the study of law, Socci heeded the advice of associate professor Dwight Codr and looked at Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel “Frankenstein” through a legal lens.

    What started as an honors conversion paper became a much larger Summer Undergraduate Research Fund (SURF) grant proposal, replete with a reading plan of an admittedly ambitious 37 works, including dense legal case studies, she says. The funding allowed her the space in June, July, and August to focus on her work, without worrying about money.

    “Research in the humanities is very rare to begin with,” she says, “and I don’t think a lot of people understand what it entails. When you’re a STEM major, you can lay out lab steps, you can show people graphs, diagrams, and lab methods. It’s very quantitative, whereas humanities research is reading, taking notes, thinking, and writing.”

    It’s nonetheless important, she argues.

    Not the Frankenstein you might imagine

    One of the first things Socci says she was shocked to learn when reading “Frankenstein” the first time two years ago was that the character of Frankenstein, contrary to popular belief, is not the monster depicted in the story.

    Gianna Socci ’25 (CLAS) (Contributed photo)

    Victor Frankenstein is the young doctor who brings to life an 8-foot-tall monster – born of inanimate body parts he stole from graves and mortuaries. Most contemporary depictions of Frankenstein wrongly show him as the flat-headed, green, almost zombie-like monster with bolts in his neck.

    That is, in fact, Frankenstein’s “creature,” who in Shelley’s book is never given a name, referred to only by such descriptors as “devil,” “thing,” and “ogre.”

    “The other thing that struck me – and this might just be my poli-sci brain at work – was that she included three legal proceedings in the novel, three specific examples of courtroom trials, and that’s not something that’s talked about. You typically think of ‘Frankenstein’ as a very science-fiction text,” Socci says.

    Those trials, in which the defendants aren’t in fact guilty of the crimes they’re accused, got Socci thinking about how the law weaves itself through the novel and found herself wondering: What if Frankenstein’s monster was granted legal personhood and able to stand trial for his wrongdoings?

    Before she could answer, she needed to tackle the idea of what it means to be a legal person and how that idea has been used over time. She turned to legal theory, philosophy, history, and Shelley’s text for answers.

    “Legal personhood is a status, which means someone has rights and privileges but can also be held responsible for their actions,” she explains. “It’s twofold and it’s been expanded and contracted over time to include and exclude so many different things and people.

    “Slaves had a very limited form of personhood. Women had a very limited form of personhood. Animals at one time were granted legal personhood and could be put on trial, which is completely absurd,” she continues. “The law is flexible and almost subject to the politics of the time. That reminded me, as a citizen, as a woman in contemporary times, the importance of paying attention to that.”

    “My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement. Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might realise.” – Victor Frankenstein in describing his work in Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein”

    Things like cognition and competency are used in helping distinguish personhood, even intent and mental capacity. And when Socci looked to the novel for these characteristics as they relate to the monster, her conclusion was clear.

    “He is a completely cognizant being who acted with intent,” she says. “He was very aware of what he was doing. He could express himself. He was extremely human in every way but his physical appearance. Violence is never the answer, and his reasoning for violence is flawed, but it’s reasoning, nonetheless. He’s angry, and he’s acting in a very methodical way. He is totally eligible to stand trial.”

    ‘Abstractions rule our lives’

    Socci says that at the outset of her research, when telling people how she was spending her summer, she started to wonder why she was even bothering. Arguing about whether Frankenstein’s monster could be held criminally liable for his actions is an exercise in the abstract.

    Except it is relevant, she was reminded.

    In an interview with an Australian professor who’d written about personhood, she asked why any of this mattered.

    “He said abstractions rule our lives. These legal definitions, these philosophical foundations are what govern our whole being,” she says. “We don’t really think of ourselves in legal terms that often, so it can seem unimportant. But it’s how we have the right to vote. It’s how we have the right to express ourselves. It’s how we’re seen by the government.”

    Suddenly, what once was hypothetical was much more concrete.

    The European Union this year adopted the AI Act, Socci notes, which, in part, rates various artificial intelligence technologies on their risk level – high-risk AI is more autonomous and can operate with minimal human intervention, for example. The AI Act seeks to regulate high-risk artificial intelligence.

    Consider Hollywood movies like “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” in which the artificial life form, Ultron, seeks to destroy. Technology advances rapidly and might not be that far off from the movies.

    “If an AI is a sentient being and it decides to act out on its own will and is harming someone, we’re going to have to start thinking about liability,” Socci says. “My theory holds the monster accountable and therefore would hold the AI accountable. Then, if you can hold the AI accountable, shouldn’t they also have rights and be able to vote if we’re talking about the dual edge of legal personhood.”

    Illustration from Frankenstein (Adobe stock)

    Socci surmises that humans will be unlikely to put robots and technology on the same level as themselves, but that conversation may very well need to be had, which means the hypothetical turns real.

    In the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that gave corporations the right to make political donations, the reasoning, Socci says, is that businesses have a right to free speech, in this case through their dollar, and that can’t be infringed upon.

    “Legal personhood is not the reason for that decision, but if you go through the legal text, the chief justice uses very personifying language when talking about corporations, saying they can bring a good perspective into the democratic dialogue. And suddenly, corporations can talk like people. This tendency to personify the inanimate is where we see legal personhood bleeding into our contemporary scheme,” she says.

    A story about injustice

    In a planned career as a lawyer, Socci says she’ll take many of the things she’s learned from this project and apply them to work with abused and neglected children, who oftentimes need an advocate to protect their rights.

    And in a way, children are a little like the monster – seeking to belong, looking to be molded, hungry for learning. Victor Frankenstein’s rejection of the monster, in the same way a parent might reject a child, results in lifelong ramifications.

    “You might feel sad for the monster because all he really wants is to be part of the human community,” Socci says. “There’s a whole segment of the book in which he is watching the DeLacey family from far away in his hovel. He realizes they’re poor, so he starts leaving food on their steps. He shovels their driveway. He helps them out despite the fact he’s been rejected by his creator.”

    Socci says that while there are dozens of ways one could analyze the story, for her, “Frankenstein” boils down to a tale of injustice.

    “We hear the word ‘monster,’ and we think ‘beast.’ We’re scared. Something’s uncivilized. Something is rowdy. Something is dangerous. But the monster, in the beginning, is anything but that,” she says. “He’s a very rational individual who just wants to be close to someone. I think Shelley is asking us to think about the definitions we’ve applied to others.”

    And that interpretation may become part three of “Monstrosity on Trial” – the honors conversion project turned SURF grant award, yet-to-become English honors thesis.

    “I don’t think there’s going to be another time in my life, unless I become an author, when I’ll have dedicated hours for researching and writing, not worrying about the income I’m missing out on,” Socci says of the SURF grant. “It was honestly a privilege to have this experience.”

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: ICYMI: Murphy Administration Announces Approval of Triennium 2 Energy Efficiency Programs

    Source: US State of New Jersey

    TRENTON – The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) today announced the approval of Triennium 2 (T2) energy efficiency programs proposed by the state’s seven electric and gas utilities. In the process of supporting building decarbonization and energy conservation, these programs will prioritize low-income customers who shoulder disproportionately high energy burdens.

    “Today’s approval of the Triennium 2 energy efficiency programs marks a major milestone in our progress toward achieving the goals set out in Governor Murphy’s Energy Master Plan, which is paving the way for a healthier, more sustainable Garden State,” said NJBPU President Christine Guhl-Sadovy. “By bolstering New Jersey’s ongoing building decarbonization efforts and the NJBPU’s robust array of energy efficiency initiatives, the T2 programs will further boost long-term cost and energy savings for New Jersey customers.”

    “These ambitious programs are the largest single step by New Jersey to achieve Governor Murphy’s ambitious goal in EO 316 to electrify 400,000 residential and 20,000 commercial units by 2030,” said Eric Miller, Executive Director of the Office of Climate Action and the Green Economy. “The steps taken today by the BPU will grow our clean energy workforce, lower bills for participating customers, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

    Triennium 2 is the second cycle of the State’s multi-year utility-run energy efficiency programs. Established by the Clean Energy Act of 2018, natural gas utilities must achieve energy savings of 0.75% and electric utilities must achieve energy savings of 2% of the average annual usage in the prior three years within five years of implementation of their energy efficiency programs.

    To date, it is estimated that Triennium 1 (T1) programs have disbursed $1.25 billion in financial incentives to ratepayers statewide and reduced annual electricity usage by 3 million megawatt hours, annual natural gas usage by 8.5 million MMBtu, and reduced customers’ utility bills by $600 million. T1 resulted in 1.4 million metric tons of annual greenhouse gas emission reductions, which is equivalent to approximately 300,000 cars removed from the road per year.   

    The T1 portfolio was expanded in T2 to address two important challenges for NJ: building decarbonization and demand response. The building decarbonization start-up programs incentivize adoption of key measures such as electric heat pumps and water heaters to reduce building emissions from fossil fuels. Demand response programs encourage homeowners and businesses to reduce consumption of energy at peak times through smart thermostats, controls, and price signals. Collectively, over $3.75 billion has been budgeted for the programs and will be implemented over a 30-month period from January 1, 2025 through June 30, 2027. This investment will help the State achieve Governor Murphy’s goals outlined in Executive Order 316 and are anticipated to reduce annual electricity usage by 2.3 million megawatt hours, annual natural gas usage by 8.9 million MMBtu, and annual greenhouse gas emissions by 1.5 million metric tons.

    To promote energy equity, the Income-Qualified Program will have more capacity compared to T1 to provide comprehensive home energy assessments and offer health and safety, weatherization, HVAC, and other energy efficiency upgrades at no cost to eligible customers.  More broadly, programs across the utilities’ portfolios will continue to include enhanced incentives and more favorable financing terms for income-eligible customers. 

    One notable addition in T2 is the standardization of the Direct Install model, including a Public Sector Direct Install program pathway, which will help support partners in labor in growing a local workforce that represents the diverse fabric of our state. Approximately 37,000 people work in the clean buildings sector, and T2 will strengthen the pathway for diverse workers and businesses to continue to build the clean energy economy.

    For more information about State and utility-led efficiency programs, please visit: https://www.njcleanenergy.com/EEP

    About New Jersey’s Clean Energy Program (NJCEP)
    NJCEP, established on January 22, 2003, in accordance with the Electric Discount and Energy Competition Act (EDECA), provides financial and other incentives to the State’s residential customers, businesses and schools that install high-efficiency or renewable energy technologies, thereby reducing energy usage, lowering customers’ energy bills and reducing environmental impacts. The program is authorized and overseen by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU), and its website is www.NJCleanEnergy.com.

    About the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU)
    NJBPU is a state agency and regulatory authority mandated to ensure safe, adequate and proper utility services at reasonable rates for New Jersey customers. Critical services regulated by NJBPU include natural gas, electricity, water, wastewater, telecommunications and cable television. The Board has general oversight and responsibility for monitoring utility service, responding to consumer complaints, and investigating utility accidents. To find out more about NJBPU, visit our website at www.nj.gov/bpu. 

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Grande Prairie — Grande Prairie Proactive Crime Reduction initiative results in multiple arrests

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    On Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, Grande Prairie RCMP Crime Reduction Unit and the Grande Prairie RCMP conducted a proactive crime reduction initiative resulting in the arrest of six individuals and the recovery of five stolen vehicles.

    Video surveillance received from one of the 27 thefts resulted in the identification of a male suspect and his vehicle. A subsequent search warrant was conducted, leading to the arrest of two individuals.

    A 32-year-old individual, a 22-year-old individual, a 39-year-old individual, a 48-year-old individual, a 42-year-old individual and a 29-year-old individual have been charged collectively accumulating 18 charges including:

    • Possession of property obtained by crime over $5000
    • Fail to comply with release order
    • Possession for the purpose of trafficking cocaine

    All individuals are scheduled to appear at the Alberta Court of Justice in Grande Prairie.

    “The result of this initiative is another example of targeted crime reduction strategies the Grande Prairie Detachment utilizes and the dedicated efforts of all the officers involved. These types of crimes cause personal hardship to the owners of the vehicles and the greater community” said Cpl Steven Jewer from the Crime Reduction Unit.

    Members of the public who witness suspicious activity in their community are encouraged to contact their local RCMP detachment. If you have information about this incident or any other illegal activity, please call the Grande Prairie RCMP at 780-830-5700 or call your local police. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), online at www.P3Tips.com or by using the “P3 Tips” app available through the Apple App or Google Play Store.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Mayerthorpe — Mayerthorpe RCMP – Dangerous Person Alert – Update #2

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    As a result of a continued investigation into the incident, which led to a public safety alert being issued by RCMP on Sept. 17, 2024, one male suspect surrendered himself to the RCMP with family, and a warrant for arrest for the second male involved has been issued. The investigation remains open; however, it has been determined that the offences committed were targeted, and Mayerthorpe RCMP would like to re-assure the members of the community that there is no imminent risk to the community.

    RCMP have charged a 28-year-old individual, a resident of Whitecourt, Alta., with:

    • Kidnapping with a firearm;
    • Robbery with a firearm;
    • Theft of truck;
    • Assault with a weapon;
    • Careless use of a firearm;
    • Possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose;
    • Flight from Peace officer;
    • Fail to comply with firearms prohibition;
    • Fail to comply with Probation.

    Dakota Patterson was taken before a justice of the Peace and remanded into custody.

    A warrant of arrest has been issued for a 30-year-old resident of Grande Prairie, Santiago Patterson who has been charged with:

    • Kidnapping with a firearm;
    • Robbery with a firearm;
    • Theft of truck;
    • Assault with a weapon;
    • Careless use of a firearm;
    • Possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose;
    • Uttering threats against a person;
    • Fail to comply with firearms prohibition.

    Mayerthorpe RCMP is encouraging anyone who may know the location of Santiago Patterson to call their local police. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-

    222-8477 (TIPS), online at www.P3Tips .com or by using the “P3 Tips” app. To report crime online, or for access to RCMP news and information, download the Alberta RCMP app through Apple or Google Play.

    Background:

    Sept. 17, 2024

    Mayerthorpe RCMP – Dangerous Person Alert – Update #1

    On Sept. 17, 2024 at approximately 9 a.m., members of the Mayerthorpe RCMP responded to information that a stolen vehicle from Edmonton may be in the surrounding area. RCMP members quickly responded and were able to locate the vehicle; however, it fled from police and it was soon located abandoned. The occupants were suspected to have fled on foot, and based on information obtained during the investigation, the occupants were also believed to have been armed.

    RCMP members from surrounding detachments including members from the RCMP emergency response team, were deployed to the scene and facilitated an exhaustive search. The members of the Mayerthorpe RCMP no longer believe the suspects to be in the immediate area and do not believe there is any imminent risk to the community.

    We understand how situations such as this can make a community feel uneasy, but rest assured, your Alberta RCMP are there for you and working to keep our communities safe.

    We ask that the public remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity or tips to the Mayerthorpe RCMP or Crime Stoppers.

    Background:

    Sept. 17, 2024

    Mayerthorpe RCMP – Dangerous Person Alert

    This alert is in effect for Mayerthorpe, in the area of Hwy 18 and Township Road 572A, between RR 92 and RR 80. Two men armed with guns are on foot after an armed robbery.

    • Suspect 1 is a white male, 5 feet 11 inches tall, 205 pounds, dark hair, brown eyes, about 30-year-old, in a cowboy hat, black sweater;
    • Suspect 2 is a white male, 6 feet tall, 220 pounds, brown hair, blue eyes, in a black flat brim hat with red letters;
    • Do not open the door to strangers;
    • Do not pick up hitchhikers.

    If suspects are spotted, do not approach suspects. Report all sightings to 911.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Grande Prairie — Grande Prairie RCMP early morning traffic stop leads to significant drug seizure

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    On Sept. 17, 2024 just before 1 a.m., a routine traffic stop initiated by a member of the Grande Prairie RCMP resulted in stopping a significant quantity of dangerous drugs from infiltrating the community.

    Upon speaking with the two occupants of the vehicle, the officer noticed drug paraphernalia in plain view. Both occupants were placed under arrest for the possession of a controlled substance, and a subsequent search of the vehicle resulted in the seizure of 542 grams of suspected cocaine. Numerous other items including drug related paraphernalia and items associated with drug trafficking were also seized.

    A 58-year-old individual, a resident of Grande Prairie and a 17- year-old youth from Edmonton have been charged with one count of possession for the purpose of trafficking.

    Both individuals were taken before a justice of the peace and subsequently released with court appearances set for the month of October at the Alberta Court of Justice in Grande Prairie.

    Your Alberta RCMP is committed to fighting the importation and creation of drugs within the province and do so through various units and duties.

    If anyone has information about illegal activity regarding illicit drugs, please contact your local police. If you wish to remain anonymous you can contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), online at www.P3TIPS.com or by using the “P3 Tips” available through Apple App or Google Play Store.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Congresswoman Barbara Lee Applauds Announcement of Over $300 Million for Port of Oakland

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Barbara Lee 13th District of California

    October 29, 2024

    Oakland, CA – Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-12) today applauded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement of $322 million for the Port of Oakland to decarbonize Port activities by providing Port tenants and Port users the opportunity to transition to zero emission alternatives. This funding comes after Lee led a letter with her congressional colleagues to EPA Administrator Michael Regan in July pushing for the grant application to be approved.

    This federal funding will advance the EPA Clean Ports Program’s mission of zero-emissions equipment at the Oakland Seaport and will help improve overall air quality at the Oakland Seaport and in neighboring communities. It is the largest-ever amount of federal funding for a Bay Area program aimed at cutting emissions from seaport cargo operations. The grant will finance 663 pieces of zero-emissions equipment which includes 475 drayage trucks and 188 pieces of cargo handling equipment.  

    “The climate crisis demands that we act urgently and boldly to protect our communities,” said Congresswoman Lee. “This investment will protect Oakland from the damaging effects of fossil fuels and will move us faster toward a zero-emissions future. Further, this investment will improve air quality and reduces pollution in local communities by cutting emissions from diesel-heavy port operations. This brings us closer to an economy that provides good jobs while expanding environmental justice. I’d like to thank the Biden-Harris administration for their leadership and my colleagues in the Northern California Delegation in Congress for their work in helping secure this funding. It is critical that we continue to invest in zero-emissions operations, and I’m proud the Port of Oakland is leading the way.”

    “California’s ports move the goods that power our economy. This historic investment of over $320 million in the Port of Oakland is a monumental step forward in accelerating the zero-emission infrastructure transition,” said Senator Alex Padilla. “Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, we’re decarbonizing our supply chain to produce cleaner air and protect public health in neighboring communities while developing the next-generation East Bay workforce.” 

    As a result of this critical funding, emissions reductions and climate adaptation community initiatives will see actionable and measurable results for the surrounding communities in Oakland.

    “I am thrilled to support the ‘Transforming the Port of Oakland to Zero Emissions Project,’ which will not only strengthen the local workforce but also provide zero-emission transportation alternatives for everyone, especially the region’s most underserved communities. This new EPA funding for the Port of Oakland unlocks critical federal financing to meet the Bay Area’s community priorities, reducing carbon emissions and supporting climate adaptation initiatives,” said Congressman John Garamendi (CA-08). “As a senior member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, one of my top priorities in Congress is securing federal investments that promote economic and environmental justice for all Californians.”

    “The EPA’s $322 million grant to support the ‘Transforming the Port of Oakland to Zero Emissions Project’ marks a huge step in our efforts to maintain the Port of Oakland as a key hub for goods movement and a sustainability leader for our region,” said Congressman Mike Thompson (CA-04). “I was glad to join Rep. Lee as she led Congressional support for the Port of Oakland’s application for this grant. This funding will help adapt Port operations in the face of climate change and I look forward to seeing the project’s community benefits, including improvements to our air quality and opportunities for local clean energy workforce development.”

    “The Port of Oakland is vital to our local economy and it’s critical that we advance its goals to reduce emissions.  Funding through the EPA’s Clean Ports Program, made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act, will support sustainability, make our air cleaner, and create good-paying jobs. I was proud to join Congresswoman Barbara Lee and my colleagues in supporting for this funding,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17).

    “Special thanks to Congresswoman Barbara Lee for always being a champion of the Port’s decarbonization efforts,” said Port of Oakland Executive Director Danny Wan. “These grant funds and our Clean Ports partnership with our customers and our community are transformative for the Port and the region—and will accelerate all of our zero emissions efforts currently underway.”

    “The Clean Ports grant from the U.S. EPA is a major environmental victory,” said Port of Oakland Board President Michael Colbruno. “We are grateful to U.S. Senators Laphonza Butler and Alex Padilla, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and the Bay Area congressional delegation who stood together in strong advocacy for this grant. This funding will go a long way toward decarbonizing the Oakland supply chain and providing environmental and economic benefits for the region.” 

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: 60 Years Ago: The First Flight of the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle

    Source: NASA

    President John F. Kennedy’s national commitment to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth before the end of the decade posed multiple challenges, among them how to train astronauts to land on the Moon, a place with no atmosphere and one-sixth the gravity on Earth. The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) and its successor the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV) provided the training tool to simulate the final 200 feet of the descent to the lunar surface. The ungainly aircraft made its first flight on Oct. 30, 1964, at NASA’s Flight Research Center (FRC), now NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) in California. The Apollo astronauts who completed landings on the Moon attributed their successes largely to training in these vehicles.
    The first Lunar Landing Research Vehicle silhouetted against the rising sun on the dry lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mojave Desert.
    In December 1961, NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., received an unsolicited proposal from Bell Aerosystems in Buffalo, New York, for a design of a flying simulator to train astronauts on landing a spacecraft on the Moon. Bell’s approach, using their design merged with concepts developed at NASA’s FRC, won approval and the space agency funded the design and construction of two Lunar Landing Research Vehicles (LLRV). At the time of the proposal, NASA had not yet chosen the method for getting to and landing on the Moon, but once NASA decided on Lunar Orbit Rendezvous in July 1962, the Lunar Module’s (LM) flying characteristics matched Bell’s proposed design closely enough that the LLRV served as an excellent trainer. 
    Two views of the first Lunar Landing Research Vehicle shortly after its arrival and prior to assembly at the Flight Research Center, now NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, in California.
    Bell Aerosystems delivered the LLRV-1 to FRC on April 8, 1964, where it made history as the first pure fly-by-wire aircraft to fly in Earth’s atmosphere. Its design relied exclusively on an interface with three analog computers to convert the pilot’s movements to signals transmitted by wire and to execute his commands. The open-framed LLRV used a downward pointing turbofan engine to counteract five-sixths of the vehicle’s weight to simulate lunar gravity, two rockets provided thrust for the descent and horizontal translation, and 16 LM-like thrusters provided three-axis attitude control. The astronauts could thus simulate maneuvering and landing on the lunar surface while still on Earth. The LLRV pilot could use an aircraft-style ejection seat to escape from the vehicle in case of loss of control.
    Left: The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle-1 (LLRV-1) during an engine test at NASA’s Flight Research Center (FRC), now NASA’s Armstrong Fight Research Center, in California’s Mojave Desert. Right: NASA chief test pilot Joseph “Joe” A. Walker, left, demonstrates the features of LLRV-1 to President Lyndon B. Johnson during his visit to FRC.
    Engineers conducted numerous tests to prepare the LLRV for its first flight. During one of the engine tests, the thrust generated was higher than anticipated, lifting crew chief Raymond White and the LLRV about a foot off the ground before White could shut off the engines. On June 19, during an official visit to FRC, President Lyndon B. Johnson inspected the LLRV featured on a static display. The Secret Service would not allow the President to sit in the LLRV’s cockpit out of an overabundance of caution since the pyrotechnics were installed, but not yet armed, in the ejection seat. Following a Preflight Readiness Review held Aug. 13 and 14, managers cleared the LLRV for its first flight.
    Left: NASA chief test pilot Joseph “Joe” A. Walker during the first flight of the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV). Right: Walker shortly after the first LLRV flight.
    In the early morning of Oct. 30, 1964, FRC chief pilot Joseph “Joe” A. Walker arrived at Edwards Air Force Base’s (AFB) South Base to attempt the first flight of the LLRV. Walker, a winner of both the Collier Trophy and the Harmon International Trophy, had flown nearly all experimental aircraft at Edwards including 25 flights in the X-15 rocket plane. On two of his X-15 flights, Walker earned astronaut wings by flying higher than 62 miles, the unofficial boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and space. After strapping into the LLRV’s ejection seat, Walker ran through the preflight checklist before advancing the throttle to begin the first flight. The vehicle rose 10 feet in the air, Walker performed a few small maneuvers and then made a soft landing after having flown for 56 seconds. He lifted off again, performed some more maneuvers, and landed again after another 56 seconds. On his third flight, the vehicle’s electronics shifted into backup mode and he landed the craft after only 29 seconds. Walker seemed satisfied with how the LLRV handled on its first flights.
    Left: Lunar Landing Research Vehicle-2 (LLRV-2) during one of its six flights at the Flight Research Center, now NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, in California in January 1967. Right: NASA astronaut Neil A. Armstrong with LLRV-1 at Ellington Air Force Base in March 1967.
    Walker took LLRV-1 aloft again on Nov. 16 and eventually completed 35 test flights with the vehicle. Test pilots Donald “Don” L. Mallick, who completed the first simulated lunar landing profile flight during the LLRV’s 35th flight on Sept. 8, 1965, and Emil E. “Jack” Kluever, who made his first flight on Dec. 13, 1965, joined Walker to test the unique aircraft. Joseph S. “Joe” Algranti and Harold E. “Bud” Ream, pilots at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), now NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, travelled to FRC to begin training flights with the LLRV in August 1966. Workers at FRC assembled the second vehicle, LLRV-2, during the latter half of 1966. In December 1966, after 198 flights workers transferred LLRV-1 to Ellington AFB near MSC for the convenience of astronaut training, and LLRV-2 followed in January 1967 after completing six test flights at FRC. The second LLRV made no further flights, partly because the three Lunar Landing Training Vehicles (LLTVs), more advanced models that better simulated the LM’s flying characteristics, began to arrive at Ellington in October 1967. Neil A. Armstrong completed the first astronaut flights aboard LLRV-1 on Mar. 23, 1967, and flew 21 flights before ejecting from the vehicle on May 6, 1968, seconds before it crashed. He later completed his lunar landing certification flights using LLTV-2 in June 1969, one month before peforming the actual feat on the Moon.
    Left: Apollo 11 Commander Neil A. Armstrong prepares to fly a lunar landing profile in Lunar Landing Training Vehicle-2 (LLTV-2) in June 1969. Middle: Apollo 12 Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad prepares to fly LLTV-2 in July 1969. Right: Apollo 14 Commander Alan B. Shepard flies LLTV-3 in December 1970.
    All Apollo Moon landing mission commanders and their backups completed their lunar landing certifications using the LLTV, and all the commanders attributed their successful landings to having trained in the LLTV. Apollo 8 astronaut William A. Anders, who along with Armstrong completed some of the early LLRV test flights, called the training vehicle “a much unsung hero of the Apollo program.” During the flight readiness review in January 1970 to clear LLTV-3 for astronaut flights, Apollo 11 Commander Armstrong and Apollo 12 Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, who had by then each completed manual landings on the Moon, spoke positively of the LLTV’s role in their training. Armstrong’s overall impression of the LLTV: “All the pilots … thought it was an extremely important part of their preparation for the lunar landing attempt,” adding “It was a contrary machine, and a risky machine, but a very useful one.” Conrad emphasized that were he “to go back to the Moon again on another flight, I personally would want to fly the LLTV again as close to flight time as possible.” During the Apollo 12 technical debriefs, Conrad stated the “the LLTV is an excellent training vehicle for the final phases. I think it’s almost essential. I feel it really gave me the confidence that I needed.” During the postflight debriefs, Apollo 14 Commander Alan B. Shepard stated that he “did feel that the LLTV contributed to my overall ability to fly the LM during the landing.”
    Left: Apollo 15 Commander David R. Scott flies Lunar Landing Training Vehicle-3 (LLTV-3) in June 1971. Middle: Apollo 16 Commander John W. Young prepares to fly LLTV-3 in March 1972. Right: Apollo 17 Commander Eugene A. Cernan prepares for a flight aboard LLTV-3 in October 1972.
    David R. Scott, Apollo 15 commander, stated in the final mission report that “the combination of visual simulations and LLTV flying provided excellent training for the actual lunar landing. Comfort and confidence existed throughout this phase.” In the Apollo 15 postflight debrief, Scott stated that he “felt very comfortable flying the vehicle (LM) manually, because of the training in the LLTV, and there was no question in my mind that I could put it down where I wanted to. I guess I can’t say enough about that training. I think the LLTV is an excellent simulation of the vehicle.” Apollo 16 Commander John W. Young offered perhaps the greatest praise for the vehicle just moments after landing on the lunar surface: “Just like flying the LLTV. Piece of cake.” Young reiterated during the postflight debriefs that “from 200 feet on down, I never looked in the cockpit. It was just like flying the LLTV.” Apollo 17 Commander Eugene A. Cernan stated in the postflight debrief that “the most significant part of the final phases from 500 feet down, … was that it was extremely comfortable flying the bird. I contribute (sic) that primarily to the LLTV flying operations.”
    Left: Workers move Lunar Landing Research Vehicle-2 from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center for display at the Air Force Test Flight Museum at Edwards Air Force Base. Right: Lunar Landing Training Vehicle-3 on display outside the Teague Auditorium at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
    In addition to playing a critical role in the Moon landing program, these early research and test vehicles aided in the development of digital fly-by-wire technology for future aircraft. LLRV-2 is on display at the Air Force Flight Test Museum at Edwards AFB (on loan from AFRC). Visitors can view LLTV-3 suspended from the ceiling in the lobby of the Teague Auditorium at JSC.
    The monograph Unconventional, Contrary, and Ugly: The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle provides an excellent and detailed history of the LLRV.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Autumn Budget 2024 speech

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Autumn Budget 2024 speech as delivered by Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

    Delivered on:
    (Transcript of the speech, exactly as it was delivered)

    Madam Deputy Speaker…

    [redacted political content]

    This government was given a mandate. 

    To restore stability to our economy… 

    … and to begin a decade of national renewal. 

    To fix the foundations… 

    … and deliver change. 

    Through responsible leadership in the national interest.  

    That is our task.  

    And I know that we can achieve it. 

    My belief in Britain burns brighter than ever.  

    And the prize on offer is immense.  

    As my Right Honourable Friend the Prime Minister said on Monday – change must be felt. 

    More pounds in people’s pockets.  

    An NHS that is there when you need it.  

    An economy that is growing, creating wealth and opportunity for all…  

    … because that is the only way to improve living standards.   

    And the only way to drive economic growth… 

    … is to invest, invest, invest.  

    There are no shortcuts. 

    And to deliver that investment… 

    … we must restore economic stability…

    [redacted political content]

    INHERITANCE

    [redacted political content]

    … it is the first Budget in our country’s history to be delivered by a woman.  

    I am deeply proud to be Britain’s first ever female Chancellor of the Exchequer.  

    To girls and young women everywhere, I say:  

    Let there be no ceiling on your ambition, your hopes and your dreams.  

    And along with the pride that I feel standing here today… 

    … there is also a responsibility… 

    … to pass on a fairer society and a stronger economy to the next  

    generation of women.

    [redacted political content]

    A black hole in the public finances… 

    Public services on their knees…. 

    A decade of low growth. 

    And the worst parliament on record for living standards. 

    Let me begin with the public finances. 

    In July, I exposed a £22bn black hole

    [redacted political content]

    The Treasury’s reserve, set aside for genuine emergencies… 

    … spent three times over… 

    … just three months into the financial year.  

    Today, on top of the detailed document that I have provided to the House in July… 

    … the government is publishing a line by line breakdown of the £22bn black hole that we inherited… 

    It shows hundreds of unfunded pressures on the public finances… 

    … this year, and into the future too.  

    The Office for Budget Responsibility have published their own review of the circumstances around the Spring Budget forecast.  

    They say that the previous government – and I quote – “did not provide the OBR with all the [available] information to them”… 

    … and – had they known about these “undisclosed spending pressures that have since come to light”… 

    … then their Spring Budget forecast for spending would have been, and I quote again: “materially different”.  

    Let me be clear: that means any comparison between today’s forecast and the OBR’s March forecast is false… 

    … because the party opposite hid the reality of their public spending plans. 

    Yet at the very same budget… 

    … they made another ten billion pounds worth of cuts to National Insurance.

    [redacted political content]

    That’s why today, I can confirm that we will implement in full… 

    … the 10 recommendations from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility’s review. 

    But, the country has inherited not just broken public finances… 

    … but broken public services too. 

    The British people can see and feel that in their everyday lives. 

    NHS waiting lists at record levels. 

    Children in portacabins as school roofs crumble. 

    Trains that do not arrive. 

    Rivers filled with polluted waste.  

    Prisons overflowing. 

    Crimes which are not investigated… 

    … and criminals who are not punished.  

    That is the country’s inheritance

    Since 2021, there had been no detailed plans for departmental spending set out beyond this year.  

    And [redacted political content] plans relied on a baseline for spending this year which we now know was wrong… 

    … because it did not take into account the £22bn black hole.  

    The previous government also failed to budget for costs which they knew would materialise.  

    That includes funding for vital compensation schemes…  

    … for victims of two terrible injustices…

    [redacted political content]

    … the infected blood scandal… 

    … and the Post Office Horizon scandal.  

    The Leader of the Opposition rightly made an unequivocal apology for the injustice of the infected blood scandal on behalf of the British state… 

    … but he did not budget for the costs of compensation.  

    Today, for the very first time, we will provide specific funding to compensate those infected and those affected, in full… 

    … with £11.8bn in this budget. 

    And I am also today setting aside £1.8bn to compensate victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal… 

    … redress that is long overdue for the pain and injustice that they have suffered.

    [redacted political content]

    … and we will restore stability to our country again. 

    The scale and seriousness of the situation that we have inherited cannot be underestimated. 

    Together, the hole in our public finances this year, which recurs every year… 

    … the compensation schemes that they did not fund… 

    … and their failure to assess the scale of the challenges facing our public services… 

    … means this budget raises taxes by £40bn. 

    Any Chancellor standing here today would have to face this reality. 

    And any responsible Chancellor would take action. 

    That is why today, I am restoring stability to our public finances… 

    … and rebuilding our public services.  

    FISCAL RULES / OBR FORECASTS 

    Economy forecast/growth 

    As a former economist at the Bank of England, I know what it means to respect our economic institutions.  

    I want to put on record my thanks to the Governor of the Bank, Andrew Bailey…  

    … and to the independent Monetary Policy Committee. 

    Today, I can confirm that we will maintain the MPC’s target of two per cent inflation, as measured by the 12-month increase in the Consumer Prices Index. 

    I want to thank James Bowler, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, and my team of officials. 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, I would also like to thank my predecessors as Chancellor of the Exchequer… 

    … for their wise counsel as I have prepared for this Budget.

    [redacted political content]

    Finally, I want to thank Richard Hughes and his team at the Office for Budget Responsibility for their work in preparing today’s economic and fiscal outlook. 

    Let me now take the House through that forecast. 

    The cost of living crisis under the last government stretched household finances to their limit, with inflation hitting a peak of above 11%.  

    Today, the OBR say that CPI inflation will average 2.5% this year, 2.6% in 2025, then 2.3% in 2026, 2.1% in 2027, 2.1% in 2028 and 2.0% in 2029.  

    Next, I move on to economic growth.  

    Today’s budget marks an end to short-termism.  

    So I am pleased, that for the first time, the OBR have published not only five year growth forecasts… 

    … but a detailed assessment of the growth impacts of our policies over the next decade, too… 

    … and the new Charter for Budget Responsibility, which I am publishing today, confirms that this will become a permanent feature of our framework. 

    The OBR forecast that real GDP growth will be 1.1% in 2024, 2.0% in 2025, 1.8% in 2026, 1.5% in 2027, 1.5% in 2028 and 1.6% in 2029. 

    And the OBR are clear: this Budget will permanently increase the supply capacity of the economy…

    [redacted political content]

    … boosting long-term growth. 

    Every Budget I deliver will be focused on our mission to grow the economy. 

    And underpinning that mission are the seven key pillars of our growth strategy… 

    … developed and delivered alongside business…  

    … all driven forward by our Financial Secretary to the Treasury.   

    First, and most important, is to restore economic stability. That is my focus today. 

    Second, increasing investment and building new infrastructure is vital for productivity, so we are catalysing £70bn of investment through our National Wealth Fund… 

    … and we are transforming our planning rules to get Britain building again. 

    Third, to ensure that all parts of the UK can realise their potential… 

    … we are working with the devolved governments… 

    … and partnering with our Mayors to develop local growth plans.  

    Fourth, to improve employment prospects and skills we are creating Skills England, delivering our plans to Make Work Pay and tackling economic inactivity.  

    Fifth, we are launching our long-term modern industrial strategy and expanding opportunities for our small and medium sized businesses to grow. 

    Sixth, to drive innovation we are protecting record funding for research and development to harness the full potential of the UK’s science base.  

    And finally, to maximise the growth benefits of our clean energy mission, we have confirmed key investments such as Carbon Capture and Storage to create jobs in our industrial heartlands. 

    Our approach is already having an impact. 

    Just two weeks ago – we delivered an International Investment Summit which saw businesses commit £63.5bn of investment into this country… 

    … creating nearly 40,000 jobs across the United Kingdom.

    [redacted political content]

    Economic growth will be our mission for the duration of this parliament.  

    Stability rule 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, in our manifesto, we set out the fiscal rules that would guide this government. 

    I am confirming those today… 

    Our stability rule… 

    And our investment rule… 

    The “stability rule” means that we will bring the current budget into balance… 

    … so that we do not borrow to fund day to day spending. 

    We will meet this rule in 2029-30, until that becomes the third year of the forecast.  

    From then on, we will balance the current budget in the third year of every budget, held annually each autumn. 

    That will provide a tougher constraint on day to day spending… 

    … so difficult decisions cannot be constantly delayed or deferred.  

    The OBR say that the current budget will be in deficit by £26.2bn in 2025-26 and £5.2bn in 2026-27… 

    … before moving into surplus of £10.9bn in 2027-28, £9.3bn in 2028-29 and £9.9bn in 2029-30… 

    … meeting our stability rule… 

    … two years early.  

    Monthly public sector finances data shows that government borrowing in the first six months of this year… 

    … was already running significantly higher than the OBR’s March forecast. 

    And so the OBR confirmed today, that borrowing in this financial year is now £127bn…

    [redacted political content]

    The increase in the net cash requirement in 24-25 is lower than the increase in borrowing, at £22.3bn higher than the spring forecast.  

    Because of the action that we are taking… 

    … borrowing falls from 4.5% of GDP this year to 2.1% of GDP by the end of the forecast. 

    Public sector net borrowing will be £105.6bn in 2025-26, £88.5bn in 2026-27, £72.2bn in 2027-28, £71.9bn in 2028-29 and £70.6bn in 2029-2930. 

    FIXING THE FOUNDATIONS 

    Spending  

    Madam Deputy Speaker, before I come to tax… 

    … it is vital that we are driving efficiency and reducing wasteful spending. 

    In July, to begin delivering, and dealing with our inheritance… 

    … I made £5.5bn of savings this year.  

    Today we are setting a 2% productivity, efficiency and savings target for all departments to meet next year… 

    … by using technology more effectively and joining up services across government 

    As set out in our manifesto, I will shortly be appointing our Covid Corruption Commissioner, they will lead our work to uncover those companies that used a national emergency to line their own pockets. 

    Because that money belongs in our public services. And taxpayers want that money back.  

    And I can confirm today that David Goldstone has been appointed as the Chair of the new Office for Value for Money…  

    … to help us realise the benefits from every pound of public spending. 

    Welfare 

    Today, I am also taking three steps to ensure that welfare spending is more sustainable.  

    First, we inherited [redacted political content] plans to reform the Work Capability Assessment.  

    We will deliver those savings…  

    …as part of our fundamental reforms to the health and disability benefits system that my Right Honourable Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary will bring forward. 

    Second, I can today announce a crackdown on fraud in our welfare system… 

    … often the work of criminal gangs.  

    We will expand DWP’s counter-fraud teams.. 

    … using innovative new methods to prevent illegal activity…  

    … and provide new legal powers to crackdown on fraudsters… 

    … including direct access to bank accounts to recover debt. 

    This package saves £4.3bn a year by the end of the forecast. 

    Third, the government will shortly be publishing the “Get Britain Working” white paper…  

    … tackling the root causes of inactivity with an integrated approach across health, education and welfare.  

    … and we will provide £240m for 16 trailblazer projects… 

    … targeted at those who are economically inactive and most at risk of being out of education, employment or training… 

    … to get people into work and reduce the benefits bill.  

    Tax avoidance 

    Before a government could consider any change to a tax rate or threshold… 

    … it must ensure that people pay what they already owe. 

    So we will invest to modernise HMRC’s systems using the very best technology… 

    … and recruit additional HMRC compliance and debt staff. 

    We will clamp down on those umbrella companies who exploit workers… 

    … increase the interest rate on unpaid tax debt to ensure that people pay on time… 

    … and go after promoters of tax avoidance schemes. 

    These measures to reduce the tax gap raise £6.5bn by the end of the forecast… 

    … and I want to thank the Exchequer Secretary for his outstanding work on this agenda. 

    PROTECTING WORKING PEOPLE 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that for working people up and down our country… 

    … family finances are stretched… 

    … and pay checks don’t go as far as they once did. 

    So today, I am taking steps to support people with the cost of living. 

    Cost of living

    [redacted political content]

    As promised in our manifesto, we asked the Low Pay Commission to take account of the cost of living for the first time.  

    I can confirm that we will accept the Low Pay Commission recommendation to increase the National Living Wage by 6.7% to £12.21 an hour… 

    … worth up to £1,400 a year for a full-time worker. 

    And for the first time, we will move towards a single adult rate…  

    … phased in over time…  

    … by initially increasing the National Minimum Wage for 18-20 year olds by 16.3% as recommended by the Low Pay Commission… 

    … taking it to £10 an hour.

    [redacted political content]

    Second, I have heard representations from colleagues across this house about the Carer’s Allowance… 

    … and the impact of the current policy on carers looking to increase the hours they work… 

    … including from the Honourable member for Shipley, the Honourable member for Scarborough and Whitby and the Rt Hon Member for Kingston and Surbiton, too. 

    Carer’s allowance currently provides up to £81.90 per week to help those with additional caring responsibilities.  

    Today, I can confirm that we are increasing the weekly earnings limit to the equivalent of 16 hours at the National Living Wage per week… 

    … the largest increase in Carer’s Allowance since it was introduced in 1976.  

    That means a carer can now earn over £10,000 a year while receiving Carer’s Allowance… 

    … allowing them to increase their hours where they want to… 

    … and keep more of their money. 

    I am also concerned about the cliff-edge in the current system and the issue of overpayments. 

    My Right Honourable Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary has announced an independent review to look at the issue of overpayments, and we will work across this house to develop the right solutions. 

    Third, we will provide £1bn from next year to extend the Household Support Fund and Discretionary Housing Payments, to help those facing financial hardship with the cost of essentials.  

    Fourth, having heard representations from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Trussell and others… 

    … to reduce the level of debt repayments that can be taken from a household’s Universal Credit payment each month… 

    … by reducing it from 25% to 15% of their standard allowance. 

    This means that 1.2 million of the poorest households will keep more of their award each month… 

    … lifting children out of poverty…  

    … and those who benefit will gain an average of £420 a year. 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, our Plan to Make Work Pay will also protect working people.

    [redacted political content]

    It is right that we protect those who have worked their whole lives.  

    In our manifesto, we promised to transfer the Investment Reserve Fund in the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme to members… 

    … and I have listened closely to my Honourable Friends for Easington, Doncaster Central, Blaenau Gwent, and Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock on this issue. 

    Today we are keeping our promise…  

    … so that working people who powered our country receive the fair pension that they are owed. 

    Our manifesto committed to the Triple Lock… 

    … meaning spending on the State Pension is forecast to rise by over £31bn by 2029-30… 

    … to ensure that our pensioners are protected in their retirement.  

    This commitment means that while working age benefits will be uprated in line with CPI, at 1.7%… 

    … the basic and new State Pension… 

    … will be uprated by 4.1% in 2025-26. 

    This means that over 12 million pensioners will gain up to £470 next year… 

    … up to £275 more than if uprated by inflation.  

    The Pension Credit Standard Minimum Guarantee will also rise by 4.1%…  

    … from around £11,400 per year to around £11,850 for a single pensioner.  

    Fuel duty 

    While I have sought to protect working people with measures to reduce the cost of living… 

    … I have had to take some very difficult decisions on tax. 

    I want to set out my approach to fuel duty.  

    Baked into the numbers that I inherited from the previous government… 

    … is an assumption that fuel duty will rise by RPI next year… 

    … and that the temporary 5p cut will be reversed.  

    To retain the 5p cut… 

    … and to freeze fuel duty again… 

    … would cost over £3bn next year.  

    At a time when the fiscal position is so difficult…  

    … I have to be frank with the House that this is a substantial commitment to make. 

    I have concluded… 

    … that in these difficult circumstances… 

    … while the cost of living remains high… 

    … and with a backdrop of global uncertainty… 

    … increasing fuel duty next year… 

    … would be the wrong choice for working people. 

    It would mean fuel duty rising by 7p per litre. 

    So, I have today decided to freeze fuel duty next year… 

    … and I will maintain the existing 5p cut for another year, too. 

    There will be no higher taxes at the petrol pumps next year.

    Madam Deputy Speaker, the last government made cuts of £20bn to employees’ and self-employed national insurance in their final two budgets.

    [redacted political content]

    Because we now know they were based on a forecast which the OBR say would have been “materially different”… 

    … had they known the true extent of the last government’s cover-up.   

    Since July, I have been urged on multiple occasions to reconsider these cuts.  

    To increase the taxes that working people pay and see in their payslips. 

    But I have made an important choice today: 

    To keep every single commitment that we made on tax in our manifesto.  

    So I say to working people: 

    I will not increase your National Insurance… 

    …I will not increase your VAT… 

    …And I will not increase your income tax. 

    Working people will not see higher taxes in their payslips as a result of the choices I make today. 

    That is a promise made – and a promise fulfilled. 

    TAX 

    But any responsible Chancellor would need to take difficult decisions today. 

    To raise the revenues required to fund our public services. 

    And to restore economic stability.  

    So in today’s Budget, I am announcing an increase in Employers’ National Insurance Contributions.  

    We will increase the rate of Employers’ National Insurance by 1.2 percentage points, to 15%, from April 2025.  

    And we will reduce the Secondary Threshold – the level at which employers start paying national insurance on each employee’s salary – from £9,100 per year to £5,000.  

    This will raise £25bn per year by the end of the forecast period.  

    I know that this is a difficult choice. 

    I do not take this decision lightly.  

    We are asking business to contribute more… 

    … and I know that there will be impacts of this measure felt beyond businesses, too… 

    … as the OBR have set out today. 

    But in the circumstances that I have inherited, it is the right choice to make.  

    Successful businesses depend on successful schools. 

    Healthy businesses depend on a healthy NHS.  

    And a strong economy depends on strong public finances.

    [redacted political content]

    That is the choice our country faces too.  

    As I make this choice, I know it is particularly important to protect our smallest companies.  

    So having heard representations from the Federation of Small Businesses and others… 

    … I am today increasing the Employment Allowance from £5,000 to £10,500. 

    This means 865,000 employers won’t pay any National Insurance at all next year… 

    … and over 1 million will pay the same or less than they did previously. 

    This will allow a small business to employ the equivalent of 4 full time workers on the National Living Wage… 

    … without paying any National Insurance on their wages. 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, let me come now to capital gains tax. 

    We need to drive growth, promote entrepreneurship, and support wealth creation… 

    … while raising the revenue required to fund our public services… 

    … and restore our public finances.  

    Today, we will increase the lower rate of Capital Gains Tax from 10% to 18%, and the Higher Rate from 20% to 24%… 

    … while maintaining the rates of capital gains tax on residential property at 18% and 24%, too.  

    This means the UK will still have the lowest Capital Gains Tax rate of any European G7 economy. 

    Alongside these changes to the headline rates of Capital Gains Tax… 

    … we are maintaining the lifetime limit for Business Asset Disposal Relief at £1m… 

    … to encourage entrepreneurs to invest in their businesses.   

    Business Asset Disposal Relief will remain at 10% this year… 

    … before rising to 14% in April 2025… 

    … and 18% from 2026-27… 

    … maintaining a significant gap compared to the higher rate of Capital Gains Tax.  

    Together, the OBR say these measures will raise £2.5bn by the end of the forecast. 

    In a sign of this government’s commitment to supporting growth and entrepreneurship… 

    …we have already extended the Enterprise Investment Scheme and Venture Capital Trust schemes to 2035… 

    … and we will continue to work with leading entrepreneurs and venture capital firms… 

    … to ensure our policies support a positive environment for entrepreneurship in the UK. 

    Next, inheritance tax. 

    Only 6% of estates will pay inheritance tax this year. 

    I understand the strongly held desire to pass down savings to children and grandchildren. 

    So I am taking a balanced approach in my package today. 

    First, the previous government froze inheritance tax thresholds until 2028. I will extend that freeze for a further two years, until 2030. 

    That means the first £325,000 of any estate can be inherited tax-free… 

    … rising to £500,000 if the estate includes a residence passed to direct descendants…. 

    … and £1m when a tax free allowance is passed to a surviving spouse or civil partner. 

    Second, we will close the loophole created by the previous government… 

    … made even bigger when the Lifetime Allowance was abolished… 

    … by bringing inherited pensions into inheritance tax from April 2027. 

    Finally, we will reform Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief.  

    From April 2026, the first £1m of combined business and agricultural assets will continue to attract no inheritance tax at all… 

    … but for assets over £1m, inheritance tax will apply with 50% relief, at an effective rate of 20%. 

    This will ensure we continue to protect small family farms… 

    … and three-quarters of claims will be unaffected by these changes. 

    I can also announce that we will apply a 50% relief, in all circumstances, on inheritance tax for shares on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and other similar markets… 

    … setting the effective rate of tax at 20%. 

    Taken together, these measures raise over £2bn in the final year of the forecast. 

    Next, I can confirm that the government will renew the Tobacco Duty escalator for the remainder of this Parliament at RPI+2%… 

    … increase duty by a further 10% on hand-rolling tobacco this year… 

    … introduce a flat rate duty on all vaping liquid from October 2026… 

    … alongside an additional one off- increase in tobacco duty to maintain the incentive to give up smoking. 

    And we will increase the Soft Drinks Industry Levy to account for inflation since it was introduced… 

    …  as well as increasing the duty in line with CPI each year going forward. 

    These measures will raise nearly £1bn per year by the end of the forecast period. 

    Madame Deputy Speaker, we want to support the take-up of electric vehicles. 

    So I will maintain incentives for electric vehicles in Company Car Tax from 2028… 

    … and increase the differential between fully electric and other vehicles in the first year rates of Vehicle Excise Duty from April 2025. 

    These measures will raise around £400m by the end of the forecast period. 

    Madam Deputy Speaker let me update the House on our plans for Air Passenger Duty…

    [redacted political content]

    Air Passenger Duty has not kept up with inflation in recent years… 

    … so we are introducing an adjustment… 

    … meaning an increase of no more than £2 for an economy class short-haul flight.  

    But I am taking a different approach when it comes to private jets…  

    … increasing the rate of Air Passenger Duty by a further 50%.

    [redacted political content]

    These measures will raise over £700m by the end of the forecast period. 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, let me turn now to our high street businesses.  

    I know that for them, a major source of concern is business rates.  

    From 2026-27, we intend to introduce two permanently lower tax rates for retail, hospitality and leisure properties which make up the backbone of high streets across the country… 

    … and it is our intention that is paid for by a higher multiplier for the most valuable properties.

    [redacted political content]

    So I will today provide 40% relief on business rates for the retail, hospitality and leisure industry in 2025-26… 

    … up to a cap of £110,000 per business. 

    Alongside this, the small business tax multiplier will be frozen next year.  

    Next, I can confirm that alcohol duty rates on non-draught products will increase in line with RPI from February next year… 

    … but nearly two-thirds of alcoholic drinks sold in pubs are served on draught. 

    So today, instead of uprating these products in line with inflation… 

    … I am cutting draught duty by 1.7%… 

    … which means a penny off a pint in the pub. 

    Alongside the changes I am making today, I am publishing a Corporate Tax Roadmap.. 

    … providing the business certainty called for by the CBI, British Chambers of Commerce and the Institute for Directors. 

    This confirms our commitment to cap the rate of Corporation Tax at 25% – the lowest in the G7 –  for the duration of this parliament…. 

    … while maintaining full expensing and the £1 million Annual Investment Allowance… 

    …and keeping the current rates of research and development reliefs, to drive innovation. 

    Manifesto 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, in our manifesto we made a number of commitments to raise funding for our public services.  

    First, I have always said that if you make Britain your home, you should pay your tax here. 

    So today, I can confirm… 

    … we will abolish the non-dom tax regime… 

    … and remove the outdated concept of domicile from the tax system from April 2025. 

    We will introduce a new, residence based scheme… 

    … with internationally competitive arrangements for those coming to the UK on a temporary basis… 

    … while closing the loopholes in the scheme designed by the party opposite. 

    To further encourage investment into the UK, we will also extend the Temporary Repatriation Relief to three years and expand its scope… 

    … bringing billions of pounds of new funds into Britain. 

    The independent Office for Budget Responsibility say that this package of measures will raise £12.7bn over the next five years.  

    Next, the fund management industry provides a vital contribution to our economy… 

    …  but as our manifesto set out, there needs to be a fairer approach to the way carried interest is taxed.  

    So we will increase the Capital Gains Tax rates on carried interest to 32% from April 2025… 

    … and – from April 2026 – we will deliver further reforms to ensure that the specific rules for carried interest are simpler, fairer and better targeted. 

    In our manifesto we committed to reforming stamp duty land tax to raise revenue while supporting those buying their first home.  

    We are increasing the stamp-duty land tax surcharge for second-homes… 

    …known as the “Higher Rate for Additional Dwellings”… 

    … by 2 percentage points, to 5%, which will come into effect from tomorrow.  

    This will support over 130,000 additional transactions from people buying their first home, or moving home over, the next five years. 

    Next, we committed to reform the Energy Profits Levy on oil and gas companies. 

    I can confirm today that we will increase the rate of the levy to 38%, which will now expire in March 2030… 

    … and we will remove the 29% investment allowance. 

    To ensure the oil and gas industry can protect jobs and support our energy security… 

    … we will maintain the 100% first year allowances and the decarbonisation allowances too.  

    Finally, 94% of children in the UK attend state schools. 

    To provide the highest quality of support and teaching that they deserve… 

    … we will introduce VAT on private school fees from January 2025… 

    … and we will shortly introduce legislation to remove their business rates relief from April 2025, too.  

    We said in our manifesto that these changes… 

    … alongside our measures to tackle tax avoidance… 

    … would bring in £8.5bn by the final year of the forecast. 

    I can confirm today that they will in fact raise over £9bn… 

    … to support our public services and restore our public finances. 

    That is a promise made – and a promise fulfilled. 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, I have one final decision to take on tax today. 

    The previous government froze income tax and National Insurance thresholds in 2021… 

    … and then they did so again after the mini-budget. 

    Extending their threshold freeze for a further two years raises billions of pounds.  

    Money to deal with the black hole in our public finances…  

    … and repair our public services.  

    Having considered this issue closely… 

    … I have come to the conclusion… 

    … that extending the threshold freeze… 

    … would hurt working people. 

    It would take more money out of their payslips.

    I am keeping every single promise on tax that I made in our manifesto. 

    So there will be no extension of the freeze in income tax and National Insurance thresholds beyond the decisions of the previous government.  

    From 2028-29, personal tax thresholds will be uprated in line with inflation once again.

    When it comes to choices on tax, this government chooses to protect working people every single time.  

    SPENDING 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, these are the choices I have made. 

    To restore economic stability. 

    And to protect working people.  

    The next choice I make is to begin to repair our public services.  

    In recent months, we have conducted the first phase of the Spending Review… 

    … to set departmental budgets for 2024-25 and 2025-26… 

    … and I want to thank my Right Honourable Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for his tireless work with colleagues from across government.  

    Because I have taken difficult decisions on tax today… 

    … I am able to provide an injection of immediate funding over the next two years… 

    … to stabilise and to support our public services.  

    The next phase of the Spending Review will report in late Spring, and I have set the overall envelope today. 

    Day to day spending from 2024-25 onwards will grow by 1.5% in real terms… 

    … and total departmental spending, including capital spending, will grow by 1.7% in real terms. 

    At the election we promised there would be no return to austerity.  

    Today we deliver on that promise. 

    But given the scale of the challenges that are facing our public services… 

    … that means there will still be difficult choices in the next phase of the Spending Review. 

    Just as we cannot tax and spend our way to prosperity… 

    … nor can we simply spend our way to better public services.  

    So we will deliver a new approach to public service reform… 

    … using technology to improve public services… 

    … and taking a zero-based approach… 

    … so that taxpayers’ money is spent as effectively as possible…  

    … and so that we focus on delivering our key priorities.  

    Spending Review: Phase 1 

    In the first phase of the Spending Review… 

    … I have prioritised day-to-day funding to deliver on our manifesto commitments. 

    I want every child to have the best start in life… 

    … and the best possible start to the school day, too… 

    … and I know my Right Honourable Friend the Education Secretary shares my ambition.  

    So I am today tripling investment in breakfast clubs to fund them in thousands of schools.  

    I am increasing the core schools budget by £2.3bn next year… 

    … to support our pledge to hire thousands more teachers into key subjects.   

    So that our young people can develop the skills that they need for the future… 

    … I am providing an additional £300m for further education. 

    And finally, this government is committed to reforming special educational needs provision… 

    … to improve outcomes for our most vulnerable children and ensure the system is financially sustainable. 

    To support that work, I am today providing a £1bn uplift in funding, a 6% real terms increase from this year.  

    There is no more important job for government than to keep our country safe, and we are conducting a Strategic Defence Review to be published next year. 

    And as set out in our manifesto, we will set a path to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence at a future fiscal event. 

    Today, I am announcing a total increase to the Ministry of Defence’s Budget of £2.9bn next year… 

    … ensuring the UK comfortably exceeds our NATO commitments…  

    … and providing guaranteed military support to Ukraine of £3bn per year, for as long as it takes. 

    Last week, alongside my Right Honourable Friend the Defence Secretary, I announced, in addition to this, further support to Ukraine – on top of our NATO commitment…  

    … through our £2.26bn contribution to the G7’s Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration agreement… 

    … repaid using profits from immobilised Russian sovereign assets. 

    And as we approach Remembrance Sunday…  

    … it is vital that we take time to remember those who have served our country so bravely.  

    So I am today announcing funding to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE and VJ day next year… 

    … to honour those who have served at home and abroad. 

    We must also remember those who experienced the atrocities of the Nazi regime first hand.  

    I would like to pay tribute to Lily Ebert, the Holocaust Survivor and educator who passed away aged 100 earlier this month.  

    I am today committing a further £2m to holocaust education next year… 

    … so that charities like the Holocaust Educational Trust, can continue their work to ensure these vital testimonies are not lost and are preserved for the future. 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, to repair our public services we also need to work alongside our mayors and our local leaders. 

    We will deliver a significant real-terms funding increase for local government next year…  

    … including £1.3bn of additional grant funding to deliver essential services… 

    … with at least £600m in grant funding for social care…  

    … and £230m to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping 

    We are today confirming that Greater Manchester and the West Midlands will be the first mayoral authorities to receive integrated settlements from next year… 

    … giving Mayors meaningful control of the funding for their local areas. 

    * 

    And to support our local high streets… 

    … we are taking action to deal with the sharp rise in shoplifting we have seen in recent years. 

    We will scrap the effective immunity for low-value shoplifting introduced by the party opposite. 

    And having listened closely to organisations like the British Retail Consortium and USDAW… 

    … I am providing additional funding to crack down on the organised gangs which target retailers… 

     … and to provide more training to our police officers and retailers to help stop shoplifting in its tracks.  

    Finally, I am today providing funding to support public services and drive growth across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  

    Having discussed the matter with the First Minister of Wales, Eluned Morgan, and my HFs for Llanelli and Pontypridd… 

    … I am providing a £25m to the Welsh Government next year for the maintenance of coal tips to ensure we keep our communities safe.  

    And to support growth, including in our rural areas, we will proceed with City and Growth Deals in Northern Ireland… 

    … in Causeway Coast and Glens; and Mid-South West.

    And we will drive growth in Scotland [redacted political content] including a City and growth Deal in Argyll and Bute.

    This budget provides the devolved governments with the largest real-terms funding settlement since devolution… 

    … delivering an additional £3.4 billion for the Scottish Government through the Barnett formula… 

    … funding which must now be spent effectively to improve public services in Scotland.  

    This budget also provides £1.7 billion to the Welsh Government… 

    …  and £1.5 billion to the Northern Ireland Executive in 2025-26. 

    I said there would be no return to austerity, and that is the choice I have made today.  

    REBUILDING BRITAIN 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, to rebuild our country we need to increase investment. 

    The UK lags behind every other G7 country when it comes to business investment as a share of our economy. 

    That matters.  

    It means the UK has fallen behind in the race for new jobs… 

    … new industries… 

    … and new technology.  

    By restoring economic stability… 

    … and by establishing the National Wealth Fund to catalyse private funding… 

    … we have begun to create the conditions that businesses need to invest.  

    But there is also a significant role for public investment.

    Hospitals without the equipment they need.  

    School buildings not fit for our children.  

    A desperate lack of affordable housing. 

    Economic growth held back at every turn.  

    Under the plans I inherited… 

    … public investment was set to fall from 2.5% to 1.7% of GDP.  

    But in Washington last week, the International Monetary Fund were clear:  

    More public investment is badly needed in the UK.  

    So today, having listened to the case made by the former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney… 

    … former Treasury Minister, Jim O’Neill… 

    … and the former Cabinet Secretary, Gus O’Donnell… 

    … among others…  

    … I am confirming our investment rule.  

    As set out in our manifesto, we will target debt falling as a share of the economy. 

    Debt will be defined as Public Sector net Financial Liabilities, or “net financial debt”, for short… 

    … a metric that has been measured by the Office for National Statistics since 2016… 

    … and forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility since that date too. 

    “Net financial debt” recognises that government investment delivers returns for taxpayers…  

    … by counting not just the liabilities on a government’s balance sheet, but the financial assets too. 

    This means that we count the benefits of investment, not just the costs… 

    And we free up our institutions to invest… 

    … just as they do in Germany, France and Japan.  

    Like our stability rule, our investment rule will apply in 2029-2030… 

    … until that becomes the third year of the forecast. 

    From that point onwards, net financial debt will fall in the third year of every forecast. 

    Today, the OBR say that we are already meeting our target two years early… 

    … with “net financial debt” falling by 2027-28…  

    … with £15.7bn of headroom in the final year. 

    So that we drive the right incentives in government investments… 

    … we will introduce four key guardrails to ensure capital spending is good value for money and drives growth in our economy.  

    First, our portfolio of new financial investments will be delivered by expert bodies like the National Wealth Fund which must, by default, earn a rate of return at least as large as that on gilts.  

    Second, we will strengthen the role of institutions to improve infrastructure delivery.  

    Third, we will improve certainty, setting capital budgets for five years and extending them at every spending review every two years. 

    Finally, we will ensure there is greater transparency for capital spending, with robust annual reporting of financial investments… 

    … based on accounts audited by the National Audit Office… 

    … and made available to the Office for Budget Responsibility at every forecast. 

    Taken together with our stability rule… 

    …these fiscal rules will ensure that our public finances are on a firm footing… 

    … while enabling us to invest prudently alongside business. 

    Growth projects  

    The capital plans I now set out… 

    … to drive growth across our country… 

    … and repair the fabric of our nation… 

    … are only possible because of our investment rule.  

    Let me set out those investment plans. 

    Industrial strategy 

    Today we are confirming our plans to capitalise the National Wealth Fund… 

    … to invest in the industries of the future… 

    … from gigafactories, to ports to green hydrogen. 

    Building on these investments, my Right Honourable Friend the Business Secretary is driving forward our modern industrial strategy… 

    … working with businesses and organisations like Make UK… 

    … to set out the sectors with the biggest growth potential. 

    Today, we are confirming multi-year funding commitments for these areas of our economy, including… 

    … nearly £1bn for the aerospace sector to fund vital research and development, building on our industry in the East Midlands, the South-West and Scotland… 

    … over £2 billion for the automotive sector… 

    …  to support our electric vehicle industry and develop our manufacturing base… 

    … building on our strengths in the North East and the West Midlands… 

    And up to £520m for a new Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund. 

    For our world-leading creative industries…  

    … we will legislate to provide additional tax relief for visual effect costs in TV and film… 

    .. and we are providing £25m for the North East Combined Authority… 

    … which they plan to use to remediate the Crown Works Studio site in Sunderland… 

    … creating 8,000 new jobs.  

    Research & Development 

    To unlock these growth industries of the future, we will protect government investment in research and development with more than £20bn worth of funding. 

    This includes at least £6.1bn to protect core research funding for areas like engineering, biotechnology and medical science… 

    …through Research England, other research councils, and the National Academies. 

    We will extend the Innovation Accelerators programme in Glasgow, in Manchester and in the West Midlands.  

    And with over £500m of funding next year, my Right Honourable Friend the Science, Technology and Innovation Secretary, will continue to drive progress in improving reliable, fast broadband and mobile coverage across our country, including in rural areas. 

    Housing 

    We committed in our manifesto to build 1.5 million homes over the course of this parliament… 

    … and my Right Honourable Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is driving that work forward across government. 

    Today, I am providing over £5bn of government investment to deliver our plans on housing next year. 

    We will increase the Affordable Homes Programme to £3.1bn…  

    … delivering thousands of new homes.  

    We will provide £3bn of support in guarantees… 

    … to boost the supply of homes and support our small housebuilders. 

    And we will provide investment to renovate sites across our country… 

    … including at Liverpool Central Docks… 

    … where we will deliver 2,000 new homes… 

    … and funding to help Cambridge realise its full growth potential.  

    Alongside this investment, we will put the right policies in place to increase the supply of affordable housing.  

    Having heard representations from local authorities, social housing providers and from Shelter…  

    … I can today confirm that the government will reduce Right to Buy Discounts… 

    … and local authorities will be able to retain the full receipts from any sales of social housing… 

    … to reinvest back into the housing stock, and into new supply.. 

    … so that we give more people a safe, secure and affordable place to live.  

    We will provide stability to social housing providers, with a social housing rent settlement of CPI+1 percent for the next five years.  

    And we will deliver on our manifesto commitment to hire hundreds of new planning officers, to get Britain building again.  

    We will also make progress on our commitment to accelerate the remediation of homes following the findings of the Grenfell Inquiry… 

    … with £1bn of investment to remove dangerous cladding next year.  

    Transport

    Working with my Right Honourable Friend the Transport Secretary, I am changing that.  

    We are today securing the delivery of the Trans-Pennine upgrade to connect York, Leeds, Huddersfield and Manchester…  

    … delivering fully electric local and regional services between Manchester and Stalybridge by the end of this year… 

    … with a further electrification of services between Church Fenton and York by 2026.… 

    … to help grow our economy across the North of England… 

    … with faster and more reliable services.  

    We will deliver East-West Rail to drive growth between Oxford, Milton Keynes and Cambridge…  

    … with the first services running between Oxford, Bletchley and Milton Keynes next year… 

    … and trains between Oxford and Bedford running from 2030.  

    We are delivering railway schemes which improve journeys for people across our country… 

    … including upgrades at Bradford Forster Square…  

    … improving capacity at Manchester Victoria… 

    … and electrifying the Wigan-Bolton line. 

    My Right Honourable Friend the Transport Secretary has also set out a plan for how to get a grip of HS2. 

    Today, we are securing delivery of the project between Old Oak Common and Birmingham… 

    … and we are committing the funding required to begin tunnelling work to London Euston station… 

    … This will catalyse private investment into the local area. 

    I am also funding significant improvements to our roads network.  

    For too long, potholes have been an all too visible reminder of our failure to invest as a nation. 

    Today, that changes… 

    … with a £500m increase in road maintenance budgets next year… 

    … more than delivering on our manifesto commitment to fix an additional one million potholes each year. 

    We will provide over £650m of local transport funding to improve connections across our country… 

    … in our towns like Crewe and Grimsby… 

    … and in our villages and rural areas, from Cornwall to Cumbria.

    … we understand how important bus services are for our communities… 

    …so we will extend the cap for a further year, setting it at £3 until December 2025. 

    Finally we will deliver £1.3bn of funding to improve connectivity in our city regions, funding projects like…  

    … the Brierley Hill Metro extension in the West Midlands… 

    … the renewal of the Sheffield Supertram… 

    … and West Yorkshire Mass Transit, including in Bradford and Leeds.  

    Energy 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, to bring new jobs to Britain and drive growth across our country… 

    … we are delivering our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower, led by my Right Honourable Friend the Energy Secretary. 

    Earlier this month, we announced a significant multi-year investment between government and business into Carbon Capture and Storage… 

    … creating 4,000 jobs across Merseyside and Teesside. 

    Today, I am providing funding for 11 new green hydrogen projects across England, Scotland and Wales – they will be among the first commercial scale projects anywhere in the world… 

    … including in Bridgend, East Renfrewshire and in Barrow-in-Furness 

    We are kickstarting the Warm Homes Plan by confirming an initial £3.4bn over the next three years… 

    … to transform 350,000 homes… 

    … including a quarter of a million low-income and social homes. 

    And we will establish GB Energy… 

    … providing funding next year to set up GB Energy at its new home in Aberdeen. 

    Overall, we will invest an additional £100bn over the next five years in capital spending… 

    … only possible because of our investment rule.  

    The OBR say today that this will drive growth across our country in the next five years… 

    … and in the longer term increase GDP by up to 1.4%. 

    It will crowd in private investment… 

    … meaning more jobs, and more opportunities… 

    … in every corner of the UK.  

    That is the choice that I have made.  

    To invest in our country… 

    … and to grow our economy. 

    Today, I am setting out two final areas in which investment is so badly needed… 

    … to repair the fabric of our nation. 

    Schools

    [redacted political content]

    … schools roofs are crumbling….  

    … and millions of children are facing the very same backdrop as I did. 

    I will be the Chancellor that changes that.  

    So today, I am providing £6.7bn of capital investment to the Department for Education next year… 

    … a 19% real-terms increase on this year. 

    That includes £1.4bn to rebuild over 500 schools in the greatest need… 

    … including St Helen’s Primary School in Hartlepool, and Mercia Academy in Derby… 

    … and so many more across our country. 

    And we will provide a further £2.1bn to improve school maintenance, £300m more than this year… 

    … ensuring that all our children can learn somewhere safe… 

    … including dealing with RAAC affected schools in the constituencies of my HFs the members for Watford, Stourbridge, Hyndburn, and beyond.   

    Alongside investment in new teachers… 

    … and funding for thousands of new breakfast clubs… 

    … this government is giving our children and young people the opportunities that they deserve.   

    NHS 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, I come to our most cherished public service of all: our NHS.

    [redacted political content]

    In our first week in office, he commissioned an independent report into the state of our health service by Lord Darzi.  

    Its conclusions were damning.  

    While our NHS staff do a remarkable job, and we thank them for it… 

    … it is clear that, that in so many areas… 

    … we are moving in the wrong direction.  

    100,000 infants waited over 6 hours in A&E last year.  

    350,000 people are waiting a year for mental health support. 

    Cancer deaths here are higher than in other countries.  

    It is simply unforgiveable. 

    In the Spring, we will publish a 10 year plan for the NHS… 

    … to deliver a shift from hospital to community… 

    … from analogue to digital… 

    … and from sickness to prevention. 

    Today, we are announcing a downpayment on that plan…  

    …  to enable the NHS to deliver 2% productivity growth next year. 

    These reforms are vital.  

    But we should be honest.  

    The state of the NHS we inherited… 

    … after – and I quote Lord Darzi – “the most austere decade since the NHS was founded” –  

    … means reform must come alongside investment. 

    So today… 

    … because of the difficult decision that I have taken on tax, welfare and spending… 

    … I can announce… 

    … that I am providing a £22.6bn increase in the day to-day health budget… 

    … and a £3.1bn increase in the capital budget… 

    … over this year and next year. 

    This is the largest real-terms growth in day to day NHS spending outside of Covid since 2010.  

    Let me set out what this funding is delivering.  

    Many NHS buildings have been left in a state of disrepair. 

    So we will provide £1 billion of health capital investment next year to address the backlog of repairs and upgrades across the NHS.  

    To increase capacity for tens of thousands more procedures next year… 

    … we will provide a further £1.5bn… 

    … for new beds in hospitals across the country…  

    … new capacity for over a million additional diagnostic tests… 

    … and new surgical hubs and diagnostic centres … 

    … so that those people waiting for their treatment can get it as quickly as possible. 

    My Right Honourable Friend the Health Secretary will be announcing the details of his review into the New Hospital Programme in the coming weeks… 

    … and publishing in the new year… 

    … but I can tell the House today… 

    … that work will continue at pace to deliver those seven hospitals affected including… 

    … West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds… 

    … and Leighton Hospital in Crewe.  

    And finally… 

    … because of this record injection of funding… 

    … because of the thousands of additional beds that we have secured… 

    … and because of the reforms that we are delivering in our NHS…  

    … we can now begin to bring waiting lists down more quickly… 

    … and move towards our target for waiting times no longer than 18 weeks… 

    … by delivering our manifesto commitment for 40,000 extra hospital appointments a week.

    [redacted political content]

    CLOSING 

    Madam Deputy Speaker, the choices that I have made today are the right choices for our country.  

    To restore stability to our public finances. 

    To protect working people. 

    To fix our NHS. 

    And to rebuild Britain.  

    That doesn’t mean these choices are easy. 

    But they are responsible.

    [redacted political content]

    This is a moment of fundamental choice for Britain.  

    I have made my choices.  

    The responsible choices. 

    To restore stability to our country. 

    To protect working people.  

    More teachers in our schools.  

    More appointments in our NHS.  

    More homes being built.  

    Fixing the foundations of our economy. 

    Investing in our future.  

    Delivering change.  

    Rebuilding Britain.

    We on these benches commend those choices… 

    … and I commend this Statement to the House.

    Updates to this page

    Published 30 October 2024

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Are Carbon-Free Energy Systems Possible? NREL Has a Way To Find Out

    Source: US National Renewable Energy Laboratory

    Live Power Experiments Using NREL’S ARIES Platform Solve Future Energy Challenges in the Present

    Aerial view of NREL’s Flatirons Campus, where researchers demonstrate clean energy solutions for large-scale systems using the ARIES platform. Photo by Josh Bauer and Taylor Mankle, NREL

    Renewable energy generation has risen for years, now supplying 22% of U.S. electricity. But the next gains will not come easy. Looming obstacles include a lack of energy storage, increasing cybersecurity threats and outages, possible electrical instabilities, and sectors that are hard to electrify.

    It’s a heavy list, but those exact obstacles are well known within NREL’s Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) platform. In fact, researchers replicate these obstacles in both physical and virtual environments every day to vet large-scale energy solutions in action.

    Like constellations that once guided explorers, ARIES helps users to orient their clean energy decisions. Following recent expansions in grid control, hydrogen, and cyber resilience, the platform can help researchers explore the greatest challenges to achieving a clean energy transformation.

    Fine Control Over Experimental Power

    One challenge for clean energy is the integration of diverse technologies. Power systems are becoming hybrid, distributed mixtures of solar, wind, storage, and many other energy resources. Electrically, they are nothing like we’ve had in the past, especially at the sub-second timescales.

    To develop solutions with enough detail, engineers need the real deal for experiments: electricity like it exists in homes, between cities, and during disasters. They need to customize electricity to recreate the big research questions.

    ARIES has that customizability, thanks to the controllable grid interface (CGI), which acts as an envelope on incoming power, shaping it according to scenarios, such as an oil-fired generator failing on an island full of renewables or faults affecting a wind-powered microgrid.

    Past uses include:

    • Validating next-generation transformers that add transmission flexibility in the U.S. Department of Energy project Grid Application Development, Testbed, and Analysis for MV SiC (GADTAMS)
    • Piloting a grid-forming wind turbine with an industry partner
    • Exploring hybrid power plants that mix water, wind, storage, and solar in the multi-laboratory project FlexPower.

    In 2024, the CGI quadrupled in power, and it is better able to answer the many unknowns of clean energy deployed at scale.

    With ARIES, researchers construct fully realistic energy systems to explore solutions for clean energy integrations, both near term and long term. This photo shows a photovoltaic array at right, and just above the array is the CGI, which customizes power flow throughout the research platform. The trailers and boxes in the center are batteries, hydrogen tanks, electrolyzers, fuel cells, direct current devices, and more. Photo by Josh Bauer and Taylor Mankle, NREL

    Clean Energy Demonstrations Get Larger and More Integrated

    With the CGI upgrade, the interface can run two custom scenarios in parallel at 7 megavolt-amperes and 20 megavolt-amperes, and the researchers are taking advantage.

    “It’s bigger, a little faster, and it gives us bandwidth,” said Przemyslaw Koralewicz, an architect of the interface. Prior to CGI2’s completion, projects were bottlenecked by the interface’s availability. Now researchers can switch between two different machines when experiments stack up, or they can even use both in the same experiment.

    “In one interesting experiment as part of the SuperFACTS project, we placed a battery on one interface and a photovoltaic array on the other. Artificially, they were made to act as if they were 1,000 miles away, individually contributing to stability on the same electric grid,” Koralewicz described.

    Przemek Koralewicz, third from left, and colleagues present the latest additions to the CGI. The CGI is housed in a trailer full of power electronic switches that allow researchers to customize real energy system scenarios. Photo by Josh Bauer, NREL

    A top research goal of ARIES is to successfully integrate diverse technologies. The CGI is designed for this purpose, making it possible to catch problems of instability or unreliability within uncommon energy combinations. One example is direct current (DC) microgrids.  

    “It’s becoming popular to explore DC microgrids. I’m pretty excited about the possibility,” Koralewicz said. “DC microgrids could avoid transformers and inject power directly into the grid bus. The CGI uniquely allows us to try this.”

    The DC bus could charge heavy-duty vehicles directly from solar or wind resources, and it could power electrolyzers directly to produce hydrogen, possibilities that ARIES researchers are eager to study for their simpler architectures and unique pathways.

    Although a DC bus is not yet available, other pathways are ready for research at ARIES. Thanks to additional infrastructure, hydrogen energy integration research is underway in a big way.

    From Clean Electricity to Gas and Back

    Hydrogen could singly abate several challenges in future energy systems. It’s a solution for energy storage, a force for grid flexibility, and an energy-dense fuel to rival carbon compounds. It’s a resource with real potential to integrate clean power, but it is lacking in experimental run time. That’s why the ARIES integrated hydrogen capabilities have expanded.

    NREL research technicians Tavis Hanna and Daniel Leighton tighten flanges on a pump for integrated cooling systems. This hardware helps make ARIES a hub for large-scale hydrogen-grid research. Photo by Werner Slocum, NREL

    From storage tanks to fuel cells, and from water deionizers to electrolyzers, ARIES features a full circle of clean hydrogen assets. These capabilities are set apart by their close integration with other renewable assets. At a megawatt capacity, ARIES is also the proper size to pilot hydrogen pathways before going to the full grid scale, the target of the U.S. Department of Energy’s H2@Scale initiative.

    This capability appeals to mining companies and downstream ore processing facilities that want to decarbonize their operations, as well as to automotive companies that are curious about stationary power from fuel cells as an opportunity to enlarge their customer base.

    “We commissioned and built this new equipment, and now we want to answer questions about electrolysis at the relevant scale,” Daniel Leighton, NREL technical lead, said in a public presentation.

    Leighton and colleagues added the new assets so that researchers can explore the options around renewably produced hydrogen.  

    “We’ll have a pipeline that will connect to future underground storage, and we are currently validating a metal hydride storage system for low-pressure hydrogen. To validate electrolysis technologies and how they support other areas, we’re building out a full balance of plant at 6 megawatts for partners to do drop-in validation,” Leighton said.

    Of course, none of this—neither the hybrid power plants nor the underground hydrogen caverns—means anything if integrated energy systems are not secure. It might not be as visible as pipelines, but as another core aim of ARIES, cybersecurity is increasingly everywhere and for good reason.

    Sharper Cybersecurity: Attacking a Wind Turbine, Cloud Security, and Microgrid Communications

    Modern organizations face a daily barrage of cyberattacks and scams, and the situation is similarly problematic for energy systems.

    “We’re seeing hacking software become very cheap and nation states facilitating attacks. At the same time, we see our energy systems becoming much more complex—for example, an increase in the quantity of devices operating as part of the grid,” said Dane Christensen, manager of the Cyber System Assessment group at NREL.

    “A loss of exclusive utility ownership over grid-interactive devices. Less tractable supply chains. A mix of legacy and modern hardware,” Christensen explained. “How do we retain the benefits of all this connectivity and achieve mutual cybersecurity?”

    It’s a question that Christensen and colleagues are answering using the ARIES Cyber Range, which virtualizes, cosimulates, and visualizes energy system experiments.

    An early demonstration of the ARIES Cyber Range was, logically, to attack a wind turbine on NREL’s Flatirons Campus.

    NREL researchers staged a self-cyberattack on a research wind turbine to show a confluence of ARIES capabilities, including cyber-physical emulation, real-time interactivity, power hardware-in-the-loop, and visualization. Photo by NREL

    In front of a live industry audience, NREL researchers established a facsimile of a distribution utility, transmission utility, and independent wind power producer, which the researchers disabled by accessing the wind power plant’s control center through vulnerabilities.

    Using ARIES, they launched an attack to shut down one full-scale turbine at NREL’s Flatirons Campus and an emulated wind power plant. This triggered automated safeties to impact the surrounding transmission system.

    In seconds, NREL’s mock attackers reduced the plant production to zero, cutting power to thousands of (simulated) people, showcasing what consequences could occur if vulnerabilities are left unpatched in energy systems and showing the usefulness of ARIES tools in addressing those vulnerabilities.

    “We leverage the cyber range to employ much more realistic systems and to be able to scale our research,” Christensen said. “We couple the physical and virtual in real time and track it visually. In this way, we can help mitigate the risk inherent in both newly adopted technologies and in the trusted relationships that exist across the energy sector.”

    The cyber-physical union at ARIES has redefined clean energy research. This is evident in a 5G microgrid platform, where utilities can assess wireless operations, and in CloudZero, where they can assess the cloud management of complex energy systems.

    Like all challenges ahead for clean energy systems, cybersecurity becomes surmountable when researchers can have the real systems right in front of them, using ARIES.

    Stay Tuned, Reach Out, Learn More

    New opportunities continually appear for clean energy, which suits the underlying build of ARIES: Its hardware is reconfigurable and with digital simulators, scalable. ARIES researchers have a versatile electric grid at their fingertips, and they are just breaking the surface of what is possible on this research platform.

    Variability in the physical size of new energy technologies being added to the system

    Securely controlling (millions to tens of millions of) interconnected devices

    Integrating multiple diverse technologies that have not previously worked together

    Three key technical challenges guide ARIES research. Partners facing these same challenges can use the ARIES capabilities to evaluate and explore their options.

    Nearing five years of being online, ARIES is equipped for another generation of experiments, and it continues to grow. If you are interested in partnering with NREL, contact ARIES@nrel.gov. These partnering examples are open now:

    Visit nrel.gov/aries to learn more.

    The ARIES platform is supported by the Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Governor Murphy Joins NJ TRANSIT to Showcase Brand New Multilevel Rail Car

    Source: US State of New Jersey

    174 New Rail Cars Will Help Mechanical Reliability

    Vehicle Maximum Speed Will Increase to 110 Miles Per Hour

    Latest Generation Features New Customer Amenities Such as USB Charging Ports

    KEARNY, NJ – Governor Phil Murphy and NJ TRANSIT President & CEO Kevin S. Corbett today previewed the next generation of multilevel rail cars, modernizing the fleet which will significantly improve reliability, capacity and customer comfort. The latest generation of multilevel rail cars was unveiled at an event at NJ TRANSIT’s Meadows Maintenance Complex (MMC) in Kearny.

    “Providing modern, reliable equipment is a critical component to improving New Jersey’s infrastructure, particularly with regard to public transit,” said Governor Phil Murphy. “These multilevel rail cars are equipped with innovative features that meet the everyday needs of our commuters. Upon their completion, these upgraded rail cars will expand access to reliable and comfortable transportation for NJ TRANSIT riders.”

    “These 174 new multilevel rail cars being unveiled today will enhance the experience for NJ TRANSIT riders by increasing capacity, utilizing cutting-edge technology, and ensuring the safety and reliability of New Jersey’s transportation system,” said Senator Cory Booker. “This investment to modernize our transit system along the busiest rail corridor in the country will encourage more New Jerseyans to opt for public transit over driving, resulting in reduced congestion and lower emissions across our state.” 

    “Since day one of his administration, Governor Murphy has been committed to improving NJ TRANSIT to ensure New Jersey residents have a reliable public transit experience. Today marks another milestone in that mission,” said Senator George Helmy. “These Multilevel III cars propel us into a new generation of NJ TRANSIT. The modern, state-of-the-art fleet will ensure customers who rely on this service daily have a faster, more comfortable, and convenient experience.” 

    “With the purchase of these new multilevel rail cars, we’re taking another step toward a more reliable, efficient, and modernized public transit system,” said Congressman Rob Menendez. “Commuters deserve the best possible experience when traveling through our region, and I’m grateful that our federal and state leaders will continue partnering with NJ Transit to help make that a reality.” 

    “The FTA is proud to support NJ TRANSIT as it introduces 174 new multi-level railcars into service,” said Michael Culotta, Regional Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration. “The new fleet, supported by $567.5 million in federal funds, includes state-of-the-art technologies providing improved accessibility, safety, and efficiency, which will leave an indelible mark on riders and align seamlessly with the goals of the FTA and the Biden-Harris Administration.” 
     
    “As we unveil NJ TRANSIT’s new Multilevel III rail cars, we are taking a significant step forward in sustainable transportation and government efficiency,” said Assemblyman Clinton Calabrese, Chair of the Assembly Transportation and Independent Authorities Committee. “These electric, self-propelled vehicles should not only enhance capacity and comfort for commuters but also significantly enhance mechanical reliability. Their energy efficiency and reduced emissions underscore our commitment to sustainability and minimizing environmental impact. By embracing this advanced technology, we are positioning New Jersey as a national leader in clean energy transportation, addressing both the immediate and long-term goals of a greener, more efficient, and more connected state.” 

    “NJ TRANSIT is committed to improving every aspect of the customer journey, and the 174 new multilevel rail cars will help achieve that by significantly improving reliability, increasing capacity and enhancing the onboard experience,” said NJ TRANSIT President & CEO Kevin S. Corbett. “NJ TRANSIT is grateful to Governor Murphy, the New jersey legislators and our partners at the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for delivering the necessary funding to ensure our system continues to meet the growing demands of our region, and the expectations of our customers.” 

    “Alstom is proud to help meet the vision and leadership of Governor Murphy and NJ TRANSIT President & CEO Kevin Corbett to provide transit users in New Jersey with a more modern and comfortable ride,” said Alstom Vice President, Head of Rolling Stock David Van der Wee. “Innovative new trains with 21st century amenities will give commuters, students, sports fans, every kind of NJ TRANSIT customer, the high-quality experience they have been demanding and deserve. Our employees in Upstate New York couldn’t be prouder to deliver these new trains.” 

    Governor Murphy and Corbett previewed the first of 174 Multilevel III cars during an event at the agency’s Governor Murphy and Corbett previewed the first of 174 Multilevel III cars during an event at the agency’s MMC in Kearny. They highlighted many of the new car’s amenities, including USB charging ports and onboard information displays. The new cars, manufactured by Alstom Transportation in Plattsburgh, NY, will offer a range of benefits over the older, 40+ year-old single level cars they will replace, including dramatic improvement in mechanical reliability. The vehicle maximum speed will increase to 110 miles per hour. The cars, which will begin entering service mid-next year, will be compliant with the latest federal regulations, including Positive Train Control.

    The Multilevel III Power Cars are Electric Multiple Units (EMUs), meaning they are self-propelled and don’t require a separate locomotive. Electric motors are incorporated within one or a number of the vehicles on the train. They are the first of their kind in North America.

    In December of 2018, the NJ TRANSIT Board of Directors approved a rail rolling stock vehicle procurement award to Bombardier Transit Corporation (now Alstom Transportation Inc.) for 113 Multilevel III rail vehicles to replace the single-level, self-propelled Arrow III rail vehicles manufactured more than 40 years ago. In February 2022, the NJ TRANSIT Board approved the purchase of an additional 25 Multilevel III vehicles. In July 2024, the Board approved the purchase of an additional 36 Multilevel III vehicles, bring the total number of new cars to 174 since 2018.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Remarks by President Trump During Hurricane Helene Briefing

    US Senate News:

    Source: The White House
    For Immediate Release                           January 24, 2025
    REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMPDURING HURRICANE HELENE BRIEFING Airport Fire and Rescue FacilityFletcher, North Carolina
       11:34 A.M. EST
         THE PRESIDENT:  Well, thank you very much.  It’s a little cold outside, but you’re getting used to the cold.
    And one of the things that are very important to me and one of the reasons I’m happy that we won so convincingly is to help North Carolina get fixed up.  They supported us in record numbers, and I’m supporting them in record numbers too.
    And they had me set — I wanted to go to Los Angeles and see what was going on with California, why they aren’t releasing the water.  Millions and millions of gallons of water, they’re sending it out to the Pacific.  Someday, somebody’s going — going to explain that one.  In the meantime, they have no water in Los Angeles, where they had the problems. But — so, we’re going there.  But I said, “Well, what about North Carolina?”  “Well, you could do that la-” — “no, I can’t.”  I said, “We’re stopping in North Carolina first, and then we’re going to Los Angeles.” And we just appreciate the outpouring of love that we’ve had here.  Lara was, as you know, very instrumental in the campaign, and she lived here and is loved, and we appreciate it.  And Michael Whatley has been incredible — wherever Michael is — hello, Michael.  Michael Whatley has been great.  And your congressmen have been great.  And what we thought we’d do is take a quick look around.  First, we wanted to do this.  I — I want to say that we’re very disappointed in FEMA.  Your new governor, it’s not his fault.  He’s brand-new to the whole situation.  But we’re going to work together with the governor.  We’re going to work together with the — your senators, but, really, we’re going to work a lot with your congressman, especially the three that are in the area, and Michael Whatley.  And I’d like to put Michael in charge of making sure everything goes well.  And Franklin Graham has been unbelievable.  We’ve made a big contribution to Franklin, and we’ll continue to do so.  But I — I’ve been hearing nothing but praise for the job that Samaritan’s Purse has done with Franklin, and we appreciate it.  Where is Franklin?  He’s around here someplace.  (Laughter.)  And — that good-looking guy.  He’s always been a good-looking guy.  His father was a good-looking guy, too, I’ll tell you.  We loved his father, right?  I saw his father in the latter years, and I said, “Well, he — he doesn’t have long to go.”  He was having a hard time, and he lived about three, four years after that, right?  REVEREND GRAHAM:  That’s right. THE PRESIDENT:  He — he was — they call — they say he was “good stock.”  He had the ultimate good stock.  But I want to thank you, Franklin.  You were — you’ve been fantastic here.  And everywhere he goes, he — he’s always — he’s always the first one I see.  Does — people don’t realize it, how — how good it is.  A lot of people, they go, “Well, maybe it’s for the people that he’s got.”  And you guys know, because you’re here, but the people that he’s got have done amazing work.  So, I just want to thank everybody.  We’re going to get over and take a look.  We’ll say a few words.  I want to just — I do want to introduce some of the people that we have.  And our first lady — we’ll start with our first lady.  She wanted to be here because of North Carolina.  And then I said, “Well, you can do that, but you’re going to have to come to California too.”  (Laughter.)  THE FIRST LADY:  That’s okay. THE PRESIDENT:  And she said, “That’s okay.”  (Laughter.) And we got to fix that one up too.  That’s — who — do you ever see anything like that one?  It’s — who would have — who would have thought that could have happened.  So, Governor Josh Stein, thank you very much.  We appreciate it.  And we’re going to have a — a very long and good relationship.  Representatives — maybe stand up, if you would, so we — the press can see.  Representatives Chuck Edwards — Chuck, thank you.  Thank you, Chuck.  Tim Moore.  Virginia.  You know Virginia Foxx, a legend — she is such a powerful woman.  Pat Harrigan.  Pat, thank you very much.  Your agriculture commissioner, who I hear is excellent, Steve Troxler — Steve, thank you very much.  Good job, Steve.  You’ve got plenty to do, right? MR. TROXLER:  (Inaudible.) THE PRESIDENT:  (Laughs.)  More than you ever thought.  North Carolina Speaker Destin Hall.  Thank you, Destin.  Thanks, Destin.  Very good.  House Majority Leader Brenden Jones.  Brenden, thank you very much.  We’re making progress, Brenden.  State Representatives Dudley Greene, Karl Gillespie, thank you very much, fellas.  Good, good.  Thank you very much.  State Senators Kevin Corbin, Warren Daniel, thank you.  Thank you very much, Kevin, Warren.  And County Commissioner Jennifer Best, thank you.  Jennifer, thank you. So, Hurricane Helene was one of the worst natural disasters in American history.  It was far worse than it was even billed.  I have never seen such water damage.  It was largely water damage — wind damage, but water damage nobody has ever seen.  I’ve been here, as you know, numerous times, but now I’m here in a position where we can do something, meaning I’ve been in — in office for four days.  And I wanted to come sooner, but actually, they had a little problem with getting, logistically, in here, but I would have been ev- — here even sooner. One oh four — a hundred and four North Carolinians have — at least — have lost their lives.  Is that now a fairly firm number, or are they still finding people?  You know?  Is — what do you think?  They’re still finding people?  Pretty much, okay?  It’s a lot of people.  A hundred and four people lost their lives.  Seventy-three thousand homes were severely damaged or destroyed.  And I’ll tell you, I’ve been to a lot of them, and this was a — this was like lots of hurricanes in one.  I’ve never seen such damage done by water.  And the — the water came, it was violent, and it left, and there was, like, nothing left.  It’s really pretty amazing.  At one point, half of the emergency calls to FEMA went unanswered.  That’s real bad.  FEMA was not doing their job.  The city of Asheville went without running water for two months.  A whistleblower testified that some FEMA employees refused to help people who displayed Trump signs on their properties.  I think that’s true, isn’t it?  I read that.  That’s not nice.  That’s not too nice, is it? But whoever those property people were, thank you very much.  Michael, is that true? MR. WHATLEY:  (Inaudible.) THE PRESIDENT:  That’s not good — huh? — about the property owners.  You put a Trump sign on it, they wouldn’t help — FEMA.  Earlier this year, FEMA kicked 2,000 North Carolinians out of their temporary housing into below-freezing temperatures.  What was that all about?  Is that — do you know about that?  What happened?  Tell me. STATE SPEAKER HALL:  We had an incompetent administration under Biden.  And we had a disaster, and then we call it “the disaster after the disaster” — that was the FEMA response. THE PRESIDENT:  You had nothing but disaster since then.  I — it doesn’t matter at this point.  Biden did a bad job.  Some residents still don’t have hot water, drinking water, or anything else.  And m- — many of them don’t have quarters.  They don’t have anything.  They got a stipend for what they lost, and we’re going to take care of it.  This is totally unacceptable, and I’ll be taking strong action to get North Carolina the support that you need to quickly recover and rebuild.  We’re working on it very hard. And I think if Michael Whatley does half as good a job for North Carolina as he did for my campaign, we’ll be very happy.  (Laughter.)  Him and Lara were a very powerful team.  So, you think you can handle it, Michael?  I don’t know.  I’m not sure, Michael.  (Laughter.)  I think this is maybe, in many ways, easier.  Okay?  Maybe easier.  But you’re going to lead the team.  Do you want to say who the — who the congressmen are that you want to appoint?  Do you want to introduce them? MR. WHATLEY:  So, we — we have Virginia Foxx and Chuck Edwards and Tim Moore — THE PRESIDENT:  And — MR. WHATLEY:  — whose districts encompass the area (inaudible) — THE PRESIDENT:  And they are the districts that were most severely impacted, right?  You were — you were affected, then, Virginia? REPRESENTATIVE FOXX:  Yes, sir.  Lost my own property. THE PRESIDENT:  Really?  Well, I’ll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA or maybe getting rid of FEMA.  I think, frankly, FEMA is not good.  I think when you have a problem like this, I think you want to go and — whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA.  And then FEMA gets here, and they don’t know the area, they’ve never been to the area, and they want to give you rules that you’ve never heard about, they want to bring people that aren’t as good as the people you already have.  And FEMA has turned out to be a — a disaster.  And you could go back a long way.  You could go back to Louisiana.  You could go back to some of the things that took place in Texas.  It — it turns out to be the state that ends up doing the work.  It just complicates it.  I think we’re going to recommend that FEMA go away and we pay directly — we pay a percentage to the state.  But the state should fix this.  If the state did this from the beginning, it would have been a lot better situation.  I think you guys agree with that, right? So, I just want to tell that Ash- — say that Asheville — I know it well.  It’s a great place, and we’re going to have it be a great place again.  That was the one that was most severely affected.  But North Carolina is going to come back bigger, better, stronger than ever before, and you’re going to be very thankful.  And you’ve already seen — I know that it really began four days ago, but you’ve already seen more action than you have in the last three months.  And we’re going to get it together.  We’re informing the Army Corps of Engineers to get going, because you have a lot of river breaks and a lot of areas that you’re going to need some pretty big work.  And they’re on their way.  They’re going to be working very — much harder than they’ve been working in the past.  And we’re going to take care of it.  Any questions from the press of any of the congressmen, governor, anybody? Q    Sir, are you going to sign an executive order on FEMA — getting rid of it?  Can you explain more about signing the executive order to get rid of FEMA, please? THE PRESIDENT:  FEMA has been a very big disappointment.  They cost a tremendous amount of money.  It’s very bureaucratic, and it’s very slow.  Other than that, we’re very happy with them.  Okay?  (Laughter.) And I think it’s — I think when there’s a — when there’s a problem with the state, I think that that problem should be taken care of by the state.  That’s what we have states for; they take care of problems.  And a governor can handle something very quickly. You know, one of the things I’ve noticed, because I’ve been doing this for a while, and we had a pretty good FEMA.  But I also noticed that when they come, they end up in arguments of — they’re fighting all the time over who does what.  It’s a — just a — it’s just not a good system. This system is so beautifully designed over 250 years, approximately, you know, and we’ll soon be celebrating the 250th year.  It’s going to be a very big celebration.  But it’s been designed very well, and we’re going to leave it that way. When North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, when — everybody knows the governor of Tennessee, I think — everybody.  Do you — do you know everybody here, pretty much?  He’s o- — GOVERNOR LEE:  I — I’ve introduced myself.   THE PRESIDENT:  I never thought of it, but you’re right over the ridge, right? GOVERNOR LEE:  Right over the hi- — right over the hillside. THE PRESIDENT:  So — so, you’re here to help.  That’s great. GOVERNOR LEE:  These here, thi- — the people in this region, including Tennessee — the people of Appalachia are grateful that you are here and that you haven’t forgotten them.  THE PRESIDENT:  Yeah. GOVERNOR LEE:  And that there are other disasters, but this one was enormous for both North Carolina and Tennessee.  So, thank you. THE PRESIDENT:  You know, I’ve seen a lot of disasters, and this — when I came — I came here right after, the day after.  And when I came here, I couldn’t believe it, actually.  I couldn’t believe the damage.  I — and I’ve seen a lot of them.  This was — this was more like a tornado than it was — what we witnessed.  So, we’re going to get it very much — very much taken care of.  Good job.  That’s nice that you came. GOVERNOR LEE:  Thank you, sir. THE PRESIDENT:  And so, you call it right — you’re right over the ridge, right?  Tennessee. GOVERNOR LEE:  Right over the ridge, yes, sir. THE PRESIDENT:  I like Tennessee, too.  Let’s see.  Where did I get more votes — Tennessee or North Carolina?  I hate — (laughter) — I hate to tell you, North Carolina, it was Tennessee.  GOVERNOR LEE:  There’s one of the counties in this disaster that had 88 percent for you.  So (inaudible) — THE PRESIDENT:  Eighty-eight percent, yeah?  That’s — the people are just incredible people. GOVERNOR LEE:  Yeah. THE PRESIDENT:  So, do you have any questions, press? Q    Yes, Mr. President, you talked about conditions being placed on aid to California — voter ID and the like.  Are there any conditions that you’re going to put on aid to North Carolina? THE PRESIDENT:  Oh, we’re going to do a lot for North Carolina.  You know, they’ve been very slow.  I don’t know why it’s been so bad.  This has been one of the worst I’ve seen.  Katrina, of course, you know, was somebo- — something that — obviously, that was a long time ago — that was not good.  But this has been very slow.  I don’t know if that was for political reasons because they lost the state.  You know, Biden lost the state.  Maybe he felt — he doesn’t care.  Maybe there were other reasons.  I don’t know. But this has been very slow.  By any standard, this has been very slow.  And we’re going to — we’re going to make up for lost time. Q    But no conditions you’re going to push for aid, just full stop? THE PRESIDENT:  Well, in California, I have a condition.  In California, we want them to have voter ID so the people have a voice, because right now, the people don’t have a voice because you don’t know who’s voting and it’s very corrupt.  And we also want them to release the water.  If they release the water, they wouldn’t have had a problem.  If they released the water when I told them to — because I told them to do it seven years ago — if they would have done it, you wouldn’t have had the problem that you had.  You might have — you might not have even had a fire. So — but here, I don’t have that.  It’s a different thing.  You got hit by a storm.  The people are incredible.  They worked really well.  Franklin was fantastic, and other groups — by the way, other groups came in that were also fantastic.  And other states came in; Tennessee and a couple of others came in, and they really helped.  That’s the way it’s supposed to be. No, this is a different kind of a thing. Q    Mr. President, have you decided how much funding you would allocate for disaster relief in North Carolina? THE PRESIDENT:  About what? Q    Have you decided how much funding you would allocate for disaster relief? THE PRESIDENT:  I haven’t de- — I have to see what it is. Q    Mr. President — Q    Are — are — are you disappointed that Senator Schiff hasn’t joined you on this trip?  It’s reported that you invited Senator Schiff to join you on this trip, and he was too busy.  Are you disappointed by that? THE PRESIDENT:  I don’t know, I — I was told that Schiff was going to travel with us to California.  I wasn’t thrilled, to be honest with you.  (Laughter.)  And I saw him last night on television.  It looks like he got hit with a baseball bat or something.  What happened to him?  Something happened to him. Q    Are you still — THE PRESIDENT:  It was a little — it looked like he got hit.  It looked like he got beat around, but — Q    So, did — did you invite him or — THE PRESIDENT:  But I’ll ask Karoline to find out what happened to him.  No, if he wanted to come out, I would have done that.  But I don’t know.  I — somebody said that he wanted to come on the plane, but I think he’s staying back for the votes.  There’s some pretty good votes going on. Yeah. Q    Mr. President, what is your timeline for getting rid of FEMA? THE PRESIDENT:  I — I woul- — for the — for this one?  For this one?  Well — Q    For — you just talked about possibly getting rid of FEMA.  What timeline are you looking at, and how would you do that? THE PRESIDENT:  Well, we’re looking here — here, you’re talking about.  To start — we’re going to start immediately — timeline.   And to finish, it’s going to be a period of time.  You know, people are also rebuilding their houses.  How long does it take to build a house, right?  It takes a time. And I want them to build houses bigger, better, nicer than they had before, so they can have — at least they get something out of this disaster.  This was a real disaster. No, timeline will be fast.  In terms of infrastructure, I think very fast.  I want to thank Elon, because Elon was able to get us communication systems, as you know — Starlink.  We had no communication.  The first day I got here, I was asked by one of the people, one of the really great representatives, professionals that — “Is there any way you could get Starlink here,” because they had no communication whatsoever.  And I called up Elon Musk, and he had, you know, hundreds of units brought here — like, brought immediately.  And it’s hard to get; they couldn’t get them before.  And that made a lot of difference.  I think it saved a lot of lives, actually. Yeah.  Infrastructure-wise, we’ll do it quickly. Q    Sir, can you just talk about how long you might — do you think it might take to get rid of FEMA?  What’s the timeline on that if you’re going to roll it back? THE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.  I would say, look, as far as I’m concerned, I’m not really thinking about FEMA right now here.  I’m thinking about Michael Whatley, and I’m thinking about the three congresspeople that you just heard from and also the other people in Congress.  And they’ll be working with the governor.  They’ll be working with the governor.  So, that’s what I see. Q    Change of subject real quickly.  The Laken Riley Act was signed by Mike — Speaker Johnson yesterday.  When do you — THE PRESIDENT:  Yeah. Q    — when do you anticipate to put — to sign that in the Oval Office?
    THE PRESIDENT:  Well, we’re honored by that.  Laken Riley — I was there at the time, and we had a big meeting with the parents right after that horrible thing took place.  And we have a — an act.  You all know what that act represents.  And it was a bipartisan bill.  Many Democrats signed — signed on to it.  That’s something that is a tribute to Laken, a beautiful young lady who was killed viciously by an illegal alien.  And we passed a very powerful bill, and it was just approved.  And we’ll have a ceremony sometime very shortly. I’ll be signing it.  In other words, if you’re asking, I will definitely be signing it.  Okay? Yeah. Q    Mr. President, the security detail for Anthony Fauci was terminated last night, and I’m wondering if you have any comment on that? THE PRESIDENT:  About what? Q    The security detail for Anthony Fauci was terminated last night, sir.  Do you have a comment? THE PRESIDENT:  No, I think, you know, when you work for govern- — government, at some point, your security detail comes off.  And, you know, you can’t have them forever.  So, I think it’s very standard.  If it would be for somebody else, you wouldn’t be asking the question.  The question is very fair, but, you know, you work for government — we took some off other people too — but you can’t have a security detail for the rest of your life because you worked for government. Q    Did you ask for it to be taken off, sir? THE PRESIDENT:  Well, we’ll see what happens. Q    Would you feel partially responsible if something were to happen to, say, Dr. Fauci — THE PRESIDENT:  No. Q    — or John Bolton? THE PRESIDENT:  No.  You know, they all made a lot of money.  They can hire their own security too.  All the people you’re talking about, they can go out — I can give them some good numbers of very good security people.  They can hire their own security.  They all made a lot of money.  Fauci made a lot of money.  They all did.  So, if they, you know, felt that strongly, I — I think that — certainly, I would not take responsibility. Q    North Carolina is a state that relies on trade and manufacturing.  Are you going to have an announcement on new tariffs coming soon?  Is there a timeline now? THE PRESIDENT:  Yeah, the tariffs are going to make our country rich.  We’re going to be a rich, rich country very soon.  Tariffs are going to make it rich.  And competence — we have common sense, competence, and tariffs.  The word “tariff” is one of the most beautiful words in the dictionary.  Q    Jonathan Reynolds, the — the business secretary of the United Kingdom, said that there’s an even trade between the U.S. and — and the UK, so they shouldn’t have tariffs.  Does trade imbalances or a balanced trade affect tariffs and your decisions? THE PRESIDENT:  Yeah, ba- — unbalance and balance, and also deficits, like with Canada.  We lose $200 billion a year with Canada.  That’s because we allow them to make cars.  We allow them to take lumber.  We don’t need their cars.  We don’t need their lumber.  We don’t need their food products because we make the same products right on the other side of the border.  It’s sort of crazy.  So, we’ve just allowed that — you know, bad management has allowed it, over the last four years, in particular, to become very imbalanced.  And I said to — I call him “Governor Trudeau,” but he’s Prime Minister Trudeau — when he was prime minister, I asked him, “Why would we do that?  Why?”  And he was unable to give me an answer.  He said, “I don’t know.”  And I said, “Do you think it’s fair that we’re paying $200 billion to keep Canada going?”  “And what would happen” — I said — I asked him, “What would happen if we didn’t do that, if we didn’t subsidize Canada?”  He said, “We’d be a failed nation.”  And I said, “Then you should be a state,” because why are we paying all of that money to Canada when, you know, we — we could use it ourselves, right? So, we take care of their military.  You know, we ordered — we’re going to order about 40 Coast Guard big icebreakers.  Big ones.  And all of a sudden, Canada wants a piece of the deal.  I say, “Why are we doing that?” I mean, I like doing that if they’re a state, but I don’t like doing that if they’re a nation. Also, they’ve been very nasty to us on trade.  Historically, Canada has been very, very bad to us, very unfair to us on trade.  So, we’ll see how it all works out. Q    So, the United Kingdom — THE PRESIDENT:  I would — Q    — might be in a better spot? THE PRESIDENT:  I would love to see Canada be the 51st state.  The Canadian citizens, if that happened, would get a very big tax cut — tremendous tax cut — because they’re very high- — highly taxed.  And you wouldn’t have to worry about military.  You wouldn’t have to worry about many of the things.  You’d have better health coverage.  You’d have much better health coverage.  So, I think the people of Canada would like it, you know, if it’s explained.   But I — just to start off, they’d have a very — they’d have a massive tax cut, and they’d have a lot more business, because then we’d let business go to Canada routinely.  And there’d be no tariffs.  You know, if we did that, there’d be no tariffs. Q    So, the United Kingdom might be in a better spot, then? Q    Can you talk about Samaritan’s Purse?  Reverend Franklin Graham has been a great asset to this state.  Talk a little bit about the way the Samaritan Purse has helped North Carolinians. THE PRESIDENT:  Yeah, say it once again.  The first — Q    Reverend Franklin Graham has been a big part of Samaritan Purse and their aid to North Carolina.  I just want to get your thoughts on that.
    THE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.  Well, Franklin Graham has been a big asset to the state.  His father was a big asset to the state, to the country — both of them.  I just think this: I think Franklin and — and other people that are doing what Franklin have done — but I — you know, I’ve known Franklin so long.  He was at the inauguration.  He made a speech, beautiful speech; beautiful prayer.  He just — he does a great job.  And we gave — we made a big donation, and it was — it was money well spent.  Sometimes you make donations, it’s not well spent.  He’s done a great job here.  He’s done a really great job. So, I want to thank you.  We’re going to the site now, and — one of the sites — and we’ll — I think you’ll — for those that haven’t seen it, you won’t even believe it, but not enough work was done.  We’ll get it done fast.  And I can speak for the Republican congressmen, we’re going to knock it out, right?  We’re going to knock it out.  And I think we take it very personally, because it was — North Carolina was very unfairly treated — very, very unfairly treated.  And it was obvious.  It was too obvious.  And we’re going to make up for lost time.  So, thank you to the people of North Carolina.  
    Thank you, everybody. 
    END                11:57 A.M. EST

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Gloucester County Man Sentenced to Six Years in Prison for Drug Conspiracy and Firearms Offenses

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    NEWARK, N.J. – A Gloucester County, New Jersey, man was sentenced to 72 months in prison for narcotics trafficking and firearms offenses, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.

    Javier Osorio, 44, of Deptford, New Jersey, was convicted on July 19, 2023, of conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute heroin and cocaine, possession with the intent to distribute heroin, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, and unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon following a trial before U.S. District Judge Brian R. Martinotti, who imposed the sentence on Oct. 29, 2024, in Newark federal court.

    According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

    Osorio conspired with others to distribute cocaine and over one kilogram of heroin, which was recovered from his apartment. Osorio was arrested while driving with his conspirators from New Jersey to Brooklyn to sell an additional quantity of heroin, which was recovered from the vehicle. In addition to the drugs recovered from his apartment, law enforcement also recovered a loaded stolen firearm from under Osorio’s mattress.

    In addition to the prison term, Judge Martinotti sentenced Osorio to three years of supervised release.

    U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger credited special agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Cheryl Ortiz, with the investigation leading to the conviction. He also thanked the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, under the direction of Prosecutor Esther Suarez.

    The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney George L. Brandley of the Office’s Health Care Fraud Unit in Newark, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kendall Randolph of the Office’s Organized Crime/Gangs Unit in Newark.

    This case is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found at https://www.justice.gov/ocdetf.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: East Helena man sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for trafficking fentanyl, methamphetamine

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    GREAT FALLS — An East Helena man who trafficked thousands of fentanyl pills and pounds of methamphetamine while also possessing firearms was sentenced on Oct. 29 to 11 years and four months in prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release, U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich said today.

    The defendant, Thomas Anthony Conley, 37, pleaded guilty in June to possession with intent to distribute meth and fentanyl.

    Chief U.S. District Judge Brian M. Morris presided.

    “Thousands of fentanyl pills, pounds and pounds of meth, and multiple guns. A majority of the cases we prosecute include those elements, and I’m pleased to say virtually all of our cases result in federal prison sentences. This case is no different, and we will continue to aggressively prosecute dangerous drug traffickers with the goal that they have the same fate as Conley,” U.S. Attorney Laslovich said.

    In court documents, the government alleged that Conley possessed multiple firearms and was responsible for importing more than 20,000 fentanyl pills and dozens of pounds of meth into the state. In March and April 2023, law enforcement learned from sources that Conley was supplying meth and fentanyl in the Helena area. The investigation led to search warrants for Conley’s home and vehicles. Officers located several firearms and ammunition in one of his vehicles along with more than 17,000 fentanyl pills. Conley admitted he had worked with others to traffic large quantities of fentanyl pills and several dozen pounds of meth into Montana in the preceding months.

    The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted the case. The Missouri River Drug Task Force, Southwest Drug Task Force, Montana Highway Patrol and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives conducted the investigation.

    This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results. For more information about Project Safe Neighborhoods, please visit Justice.gov/PSN.

    XXX

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Hartford Man Sentenced to More Than 5 Years in Federal Prison for Gun Possession Offense

    Source: United States Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

    Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, today announced ANTHONY SANTOS, also known as “A-1,” 36, of Hartford, was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge Kari A. Dooley in Bridgeport to 63 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release for illegally possessing firearms.

    According to court documents and statements made in court, on October 17, 2023, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Hartford Task Force and Hartford Police Department conducted a court-authorized search of Santos’ apartment on Park Street in Hartford.  When investigators entered the apartment, Santos ran to the window and threw a loaded Draco 7.62x39mm assault-style firearm with a high-capacity magazine containing 30 rounds of ammunition.  The firearm landed on a rooftop below and was recovered.  Inside the apartment, investigators seized, three firearm magazines, ammunition, a small amount of fentanyl, large bags containing bulk quantities of marijuana, thousands of bags of marijuana in pre-packaged sleeves, drug processing and packaging materials, jewelry, and approximately $4,070 in cash.

    A search of two vehicles associated with Santos that were parked near the apartment revealed a loaded Smith &Wesson .357 revolver and a loaded Glock .40 caliber pistol, both of which had been reported as stolen.  The Glock was fitted with an illegal “switch” that converted the pistol to a fully automatic weapon.  One of the vehicles contained a backpack with numerous bags of marijuana and approximately $3,290 in cash.

    Santos’ criminal history includes state convictions for narcotics distribution offenses.  It is a violation of federal law for a person previously convicted of a felony offense to possess a firearm or ammunition that has moved in interstate or foreign commerce.

    Santos has been detained since October 17, 2023.  On August 6, 2024, he pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of firearms by a felon.

    The Drug Enforcement Administration’s Hartford Task Force includes personnel from the DEA Hartford Resident Office, the Connecticut State Police, and the Bristol, Hartford, East Hartford, Enfield, Manchester, New Britain, Rocky Hill, Wethersfield, and Windsor Locks Police Departments.  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has assisted the investigation.

    The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Reed Durham and Geoffrey Stone.

    This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce gun violence and other violent crime, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone.  In May 2021, the Justice Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.  For more information about Project Safe Neighborhoods, please visit www.justice.gov/psn.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Red Deer — Red Deer RCMP Crime Reduction Team arrest male in stolen vehicle

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    On July 25, 2024, the Red Deer RCMP Crime Reduction Team (CRT) arrested and charged one male after finding him driving a stolen vehicle.

    Members of Red Deer RCMP CRT were making patrols when they observed an SUV that had been reported to police as stolen, being driven by a male. Red Deer RCMP Police Dog Services (PDS) deployed tire deflation device and police followed the vehicle until it entered a ditch. The male suspect exited the car and ran away. With the assistance of PDS and the Blackfalds RCMP, the male suspect was located and arrested.

    A 41-year-old individual, a resident of Rocky Mountain House, Alta., has been charged with the following offences:

    • Possession of property obtained by crime x3
    • Resist peace officer
    • Fail to comply with release order x4

    Following a judicial interim release hearing, the individual was remanded in custody to appear at the Alberta Court of Justice in Red Deer with a next appearance is scheduled for September 25, 2024.

    Red Deer RCMP remains fully committed to building safe communities and enforcing laws to the fullest extend. Red Deer RCMP Crime Reduction Team is committed to reducing crime in Red Deer and encourages members of the public to report their concerns, as the information provided to police is instrumental in maintaining safety in the community.

    If you have information regarding this event or any other suspicious or illegal activity within the city of Red Deer, please contact Red Deer RCMP at 403-406-2200. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), online at www.P3Tips.com or by using the “P3 Tips” app available through the Apple App or Google Play Store. To report crime online, or for access to RCMP news and information, download the Alberta RCMP app through Apple or Google Play.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Red Deer — Red Deer RCMP Crime Reduction Team arrest male and search residence

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    On July 19, 2024, the Red Deer RCMP Crime Reduction Team (CRT) arrested and charged one individual following an investigation into a stolen vehicle.

    On July 19, 2024, Red Deer RCMP CRT were conducting patrols in the city when they located a motorcycle known to police to be stolen. CRT observed the driver of the stolen motorbike remove their helmet, at which time police were able to identify the individual as they are known to police. The individual ran away, dropping a backpack and cellphone. After a brief foot chase, police arrested the individual and seized the dropped items. As a result of the investigation, CRT obtained a search warrant for the suspect’s residence.

    At approximately 1:30 a.m., on July 20, 2024, Red Deer RCMP CRT, with the assistance of Red Deer RCMP General Investigation Section (GIS), Traffic Services, and Police Dog Services (PDS) executed a search warrant at a residence in the Waskasoo neighbourhood. As a result of the search, police seized two rifles, ammunition, multiple ID cards in various names, credit cards and fake ID cards.

    A 34-year-old individual, a resident of Red Deer, has been charged with 16 offences, including the following:

    • 6 various criminal weapons offences (possession of weapon contrary to order, unsafe storage of firearm, possession of firearm knowing unauthorized, possession of restricted firearm without licence)
    • Illegal possession or trafficking in government documents
    • Possession of property obtained by crime x4
    • Possess break-in instruments
    • Operation of a motor vehicle while impaired
    • Drive carelessly
    • Drive uninsured motor vehicle on highway

    Following a judicial interim release hearing, the individual was remanded in custody to appear in court at the Alberta Court of Justice in Red Deer with a next scheduled appearance was on Sept. 25, 2024.

    Red Deer RCMP Crime Reduction Team is committed to public safety and reducing crime in Red Deer through intelligence-led policing and proactive enforcement.

    If you have information regarding this event or any other suspicious or illegal activity within the City of Red Deer, please contact Red Deer RCMP at 403-406-2200. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), online at www.P3Tips.com or by using the “P3 Tips” app available through the Apple App or Google Play Store. To report crime online, or for access to RCMP news and information, download the Alberta RCMP app through Apple or Google Play.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Smoky Lake — Smoky Lake RCMP arrest and charge a male after break and enter and theft

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    n Sept. 20, 2024, at 9 a.m., Smoky Lake RCMP was dispatched to a break and enter in progress on Township Road 600, in Smoky Lake County. It was reported that multiple individuals were smashing in the door to a residence and stealing property.

    An officer attended the location and witnessed the suspects leaving the property in two vehicles. Both vehicles tried to evade the officer by turning in different directions. The officer followed one vehicle and continued until it was ditched in a back trail near Township Road 620 and Highway 36. All three individuals from that vehicle attempted to flee on foot. The officer arrested two of the suspects while the third fled on foot into the bush.

    Resources were called in to assist, and with the help of Lac La Biche RCMP, St. Paul RCMP, RCMP Police Dog Services, Crime Reduction Unit and the police airplane, the third suspect was taken into custody. As well, a search of the vehicle resulted in a firearm being located under the seat.

    A 27-year-old individual, a resident of Janvier, Alta., was charged with:

    • Break and Enter
    • Flight from Police
    • Operation of a motor vehicle while prohibited
    • Resist peace officer
    • Possession of stolen property over $5000
    • Unauthorized possession firearm
    • Possession of a firearm knowing it was unauthorized
    • Possession of firearm in motor vehicle
    • Fail to comply with order

    After a judicial interim release hearing, the 27-year-old individual remanded into custody.

    A 21-year-old individual, a resident of Janvier, had multiple warrants from Wood Buffalo, Alta., and Edmonton and was released for a future court date.

    The third suspect was released without charges. The investigation continues into the identity of the occupants of the second suspect vehicle.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Red Deer — Red Deer RCMP Crime Reduction Team conducts Targeted Response to Auto Theft operation

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    In the month of August, Red Deer RCMP Crime Reduction Team (CRT) completed a Targeted Response to Auto Theft (TRAP) operation.

    Red Deer RCMP CRT led this TRAP operation, which was focused on recovering stolen vehicles and apprehending those responsible for the thefts. The initiative was successful with the assistance of Red Deer RCMP General Investigation Section, General Duty members, Traffic Services, Police Dog Services, Emergency Response Team, Integrated Gang Enforcement Team and RCMP Air Services.

    As a result of the operation:

    • 2 stolen vehicles were recovered
    • 4 vehicles seized/towed
    • 18 new Criminal Code charges laid
    • 6 new CDSA possession for the purpose of trafficking charges laid
    • 3 new CDSA possession charges laid
    • 4 TSA charges
    • 1 Tobacco Tax Act charge
    • 2 arrested for outstanding warrants
    • Seizure of methamphetamine, fentanyl, cocaine and illegally obtained prescription pills
    • 1 knife seized
    • 1 extendable baton seized
    • 2 bear spray seized
    • 1 shotgun seized
    • Ammunition seized
    • Canadian currency seized

    Red Deer RCMP CRT is committed to the safety of Red Deer. By using an intelligence-led strategy, CRT is able to focus on identifying repeat offenders and conduct targeted enforcement initiatives such as TRAP, in an effort to reduce crime within Red Deer.

    Red Deer RCMP remind the public that crime prevention is a shared responsibility. Members of the community are reminded of their role in preventing criminal activity:

    • Lock up houses, sheds, vehicles and any other property that is easily accessible.
    • Never leave running vehicles unlocked. Nearly half of the vehicle thefts in Alberta over the past year have had the keys left inside.
    • Take photos and record serial numbers of property.

    If you have any information regarding criminal activity in Red Deer, please contact Red Deer RCMP at 403-406-2200, call 911, or contact your local Police Service. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), online at www.P3Tips.com or by using the “P3 Tips” app available through the Apple App or Google Play Store.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Newhouse, Fentanyl Task Force Release Final Report

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Dan Newhouse (4th District of Washington)

    Headline: Newhouse, Fentanyl Task Force Release Final Report

    This week, Rep. Dan Newhouse (WA-04) led the Central Washington Fentanyl Task Force in a meeting and released the taskforce’s final report outlining guidance to help mitigate the ongoing fentanyl crisis.

    “We are proud to release a report which outlines our comprehensive work over the last year and a half to help stop the influence of the fentanyl crisis in our community,” said Rep. Newhouse.

    Newhouse continued, “From individuals who have firsthand experience in substance recovery, law enforcement officers, tribal representatives, and medical professionals, this task force represents all of us who have been impacted by this issue in one way or another. I am proud of the work we have accomplished.”

    Meeting on a quarterly basis, the task force identified four categories to assess the problem and execute solutions: data, funding, policy, and education, at the federal, state, tribal, and local levels.

    In each meeting, the task force compiled datasets to assess current trends of the crisis, mapped out funding mechanisms and resources available, discussed current laws and available programs, both for enforcement as well as prevention and treatment services, and finally, contributed to the all-hands-on-deck education campaign in Central Washington to combat this crisis.

    This report reflects the task force’s collective efforts, recommendations, and conclusions.

    Background

    Enough fentanyl was interdicted by U.S. law enforcement last year to kill every American 66 times, 97% of it originates from China, 90% of it enters through U.S. Ports of Entry by vehicle, and 17% of meth, 41% of cocaine, 72% of heroin, and 74% of xylazine tested positive for fentanyl. The Task Force has evidence that shows 7 out of 10 fentanyl pills off the street in the U.S. possess a potentially deadly dose.

    The fentanyl, mental health, and substance use disorder crisis is a multifaceted problem that requires all members of the community, both in the public and private sectors, to bring together their expertise, perspectives, and efforts to execute tangible and attainable solutions. The Central Washington Fentanyl Task Force was formed to bring together all voices of the community to discuss the complex problem of the fentanyl crisis and identify and implement attainable solutions.

    Watch the full announcement here.

    View the full report here. 

    ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Whitecourt — White Court RCMP traffic stop leads to significant drug seizure

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    On Oct. 3, 2024 at around 3 p.m., Whitecourt RCMP Traffic Services entered into an investigation of a flight from police after an attempted traffic stop for speeding on Highway 43. The vehicle had been captured on radar in excess of speeds of 200 km/hr.

    Whitecourt RCMP soon located the vehicle and the driver at a local gas station. The lone male occupant, was arrested and a subsequent investigation conducted on scene. Through the collaboration of the White Court RCMP, Traffic Services and GIS, a significant quantity of dangerous drugs were seized at the scene and prevented from infiltrating the community.

    As a result of the investigation an estimated $100,000 worth of items were seized:

    • A loaded 9mm hand gun & ammunition;
    • Handcuffs;
    • Various bags suspected to contain methamphetamine, cocaine & psilocybin’s;
    • Numerous unstamped tobacco products.

    A 36-year-old individual, a resident of Edmonton. Has been charged with:

    • Possession for the purpose of trafficking;
    • Dangerous driving;
    • Unlawful possession of tobacco products;
    • Possession of a prohibited weapon & several other firearms related offences.

    The individual was taken before a justice of the peace and subsequently remanded with a next court appearance set Oct. 8, 2024, at the Alberta Court of Justice in Whitecourt.

    Your Alberta RCMP is committed to fighting the importation and creation of drugs within the province and do so through various units and duties. If anyone has information about illegal activity regarding illicit drugs, please contact your local police. If you wish to remain anonymous you can contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), online at www.P3TIPS.com or by using the “P3 Tips” available through Apple App or Google Play Store.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Sherwood Park — Strathcona County RCMP Crime Reduction Unit proactive patrol leads to two arrests

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    On Oct. 5, 2024, at approximately 12:47 a.m., members of the Strathcona County RCMP Crime Reduction Unit were conducting proactive patrols in the area of Pembina Road when they engaged in a traffic stop with a suspicious vehicle.

    During the police interaction with the occupants of the vehicle, officers observed the driver hiding a small bag in the vehicle. Both occupants were arrested.

    Subsequently, the vehicle was searched, and police located and seized several imitation firearms, prohibited weapons and a small quantity of drugs.

    A 48-year-old individual Leigh-Anne Grace McKay (48), a resident of Edmonton, has been charged with the following offences:

    • Possession of a controlled substance – Methamphetamine
    • Unauthorized possession of a prohibited weapon
    • Unauthorized possession in a motor vehicle
    • Possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose

    A 61-year-old individual a resident of Tofield, Alta., has been charged with the following offences:

    • Possession of a controlled substance – Methamphetamine
    • Unauthorized possession of a weapon (x2)
    • Unauthorized possession in a motor vehicle (x2)
    • Possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose (x2)

    Both individuals were taken before a justice of the peace and were released from custody. They are scheduled to appear on Oct. 23. 2024, at the Alberta Court of Justice in Sherwood park, Alta.

    Your Strathcona County RCMP is committed to keeping our community safe. If you have information regarding any illegal activity within the Strathcona County detachment area, please contact Strathcona County RCMP at 780-467-7741. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), online at www.P3Tips.com or by using the “P3 Tips” app available through the Apple App or Google Play Store. To report crime online, or for access to RCMP news and information, download the Alberta RCMP app through Apple or Google Play.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Public invited to celebrate SR 26 passing lanes project ribbon cutting in Whitman County, Wednesday, Oct. 30

    Source: Washington State News 2

    COLFAX – A celebratory ribbon cutting is taking place on Wednesday, Oct. 30, to mark the completion and grand opening of four new passing lanes on State Route 26 between Dusty and Colfax. The public is invited to attend the ribbon-cutting at 11 a.m. at the Palouse Empire Fairgrounds. State and local officials and regional transportation partners will join representatives from the Washington State Department of Transportation to mark the occasion.

    Improving safety

    The four new passing lanes are part of the Connecting Washington funding package passed by the legislature in 2015. The passing lanes add locations for vehicles needing to pass slower vehicles safely. The SR 26 corridor is heavily traveled by students at Washington State University and local agricultural vehicles. The new passing lanes now give safe locations for travelers to pass vehicles, with two passing lanes westbound and two located in the eastbound direction.

    State Route 26 passing lanes ribbon cutting details:

    When:  11 a.m. to noon, Wednesday, Oct. 30, with official remarks and ribbon cutting beginning at 11 a.m.

    Where:  Palouse Empire Fairgrounds, State Route 26 and Fair Grounds Road.

    Details:  The ribbon cutting will celebrate the completion of the four new passing lanes constructed on State Route 26 between Dusty and Colfax. Members of the public and media are invited to commemorate the occasion. The ceremony event will feature speeches from local state representatives, WSDOT, the Palouse Regional Planning Transportation Organization and WSU. 

    Directions:  If traveling from US 195, people should turn west onto State Route 26, go approximately 4 miles to Fair Grounds Road, then turn right into the fairgrounds parking lot.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: N.M. Delegation Welcomes Over $4 Million From the Infrastructure Law to Enhance Safety, Reduce Delays at Railway Crossings, and Grow Local Economies in Clovis and San Juan County

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico)
    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), and U.S. Representatives Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), and Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) welcomed a combined $4,570,920 for two projects in New Mexico from the U.S. Department of Transportation to strengthen the nation’s supply chain, reduce costs, and grow New Mexico’s economy.  
    $4,000,000 will help San Juan County and the Navajo Nation complete the planning for a proposed freight rail line connecting Farmington and Gallup.  
    $570,920 will help the City of Clovis enhance safety and reduce traffic delays at two railway crossings. 
    “Thanks to our Infrastructure Law, we’re delivering the funds needed to kick-start planning for a freight rail line from Farmington to Gallup and improve railway crossings in Clovis. Combined, these investments will strengthen our nation’s supply chain, grow local economies, lower transportation costs, create high-quality jobs New Mexicans can build their families around, and improve safety for our communities,” said Heinrich. “I’m pleased to welcome these federal investments, and I remain committed to securing more investments to connect rural communities to the abundant opportunities ahead.” 
    “Across our state, New Mexicans rely daily on our railways for travel and to keep our economy running,” said Luján. “Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this $4.5+ million in federal funding will deliver much-needed railway safety enhancements in Clovis and help construct a new rail line within the Navajo Nation to expand regional rail service in Northwestern New Mexico. I’m proud to welcome these two grants that will both boost railway service and drive economic development for Clovis, the Navajo Nation, and their surrounding communities. I will continue to fight to bring federal dollars home to New Mexico to improve the safety, efficiency, and reliability of passenger and freight rail.” 
    “Every time I go to the Four Corners, local leaders emphasize the importance of connecting the region with rail. The Four Corners area is a major economic center of our state, and the funding we’re announcing today is the beginning of our work to make sure our rail infrastructure is ready to meet that potential across San Juan and McKinley Counties,” said Leger Fernández. “I am happy that this funding also includes improvements to safety and efficiency of freight in Clovis. With the support of the CRISI program, we can begin the critical work needed to build stronger connections and drive growth in rural New Mexico.” 
    “I am thrilled about the recent allocation of two significant federal grants from the Federal Railroad Administration’s CRISI program, which will greatly enhance rail safety and connectivity in New Mexico,” said Stansbury. “These two grants reflect our commitment to investing in infrastructure prioritizing safety and economic growth. I am grateful for the support from the Federal Railroad Administration and look forward to seeing these projects come to fruition as we work together to build a safer New Mexico!” 
    “Federal investments like this bring vital safety and economic benefits to communities across New Mexico. With this funding, we’re improving railway safety, cutting down delays, and connecting New Mexicans to opportunities that drive economic growth and quality jobs,” said Vasquez. “Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we are building a stronger, safer transportation network. I’m proud to welcome this funding to bring more jobs and opportunities to our rural communities.” 
    “The award of grant funding takes a prospective freight rail line study further than any study in the past and is further proof of the importance of collaboration between tribal, local, state, and federal partners to open doors to economic opportunities. We are appreciative of assistance from New Mexico’s federal delegation and excited for future economic growth opportunities in San Juan County and the Four Corners region,” said John T. Beckstead, San Juan County Commission Chairman. 
    “The Federal CRISI Grant brings San Juan County and the City of Farmington one step closer to having competitive transportation and economic development. This is an important step in growing our regional economy,” said Tim Gibbs, Four Corner Economic Development CEO. 
    The grants are awarded through the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Railroad Administration’s Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) Program, which provides funding for projects that improve the safety, efficiency, and reliability of intercity passenger and freight rail. The CRISI Program received significant, additional investments from the Infrastructure Law – legislation passed by Democrats in the N.M. Congressional Delegation.  
    The N.M. Delegation sent a letter of support to the U.S. Department of Transportation supporting the grant for San Juan County that is being announced today. This grant will prepare the Four Corners Rail Project for final design proposals and planning. 
    In May 2020, Heinrich and Luján wrote a letter of support for San Juan County’s application for a Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Grant,  which applicants of the CRISI Program are required to be approved for.  
    Members of the N.M. Delegation sent a letter of support to the U.S. Department of Transportation urging the support of the grant for the City of Clovis that is being announced today. This grant will enhance safety and reduce traffic delays at two railway crossings including modifications to the Norris Street railroad crossing and construction of a new grade-separated crossing at MLK Jr. Boulevard.  
    Below is a breakdown of the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Railroad Administration funding:  
    Project Name 
    Recipient 
    Award Amount 
    Project Description 
    Clovis, N.M. Corridor Improvement Project 
    City of Clovis 
    $ 570,920 
    The proposed project was selected for Project Development and includes activities for one grade crossing separation and improvements to a second at-grade crossing along the BNSF Railway line in Clovis, New Mexico. The project aligns with the selection criteria by enhancing safety and improving system and service performance as the project will reduce blocked crossings. The City of Clovis and BNSF Railway will contribute the 53 percent non-Federal match. This project qualifies for the statutory set-aside for projects in Rural Areas. 
    Four Corners Freight Rail Project 
    San Juan County 
    $ 4,000,000 
    The proposed project was selected for Project Development and includes activities to develop a new rail line to connect the Farmington, New Mexico Area to the BNSF Railway corridor near Gallup across San Juan County and McKinley County, New Mexico. The proposed project is a partnership between San Juan County, the Navajo Nation, and the New Mexico Department of Transportation, and most of the project is located within the Navajo Nation. The project aligns with the selection criteria by enhancing resilience and improving system and service performance as the project will provide a viable freight transportation modal alternative to highway trucking, opportunities to simplify the supply chain, and enable new, rail-dependent economic development opportunities thereby imparting benefits to the Navajo Nation and surrounding communities. San Juan County will contribute the 20 percent non-Federal match. This project qualifies for the statutory set-aside for projects in Rural Areas. 
     For more information from San Juan County on the proposed Four Corners Rail Project, please click here. 

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: A Budget to fix the foundations and deliver change for Wales

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Chancellor takes long-term decisions to restore stability, rebuild Britain and protect working people across Wales.

    HM Treasury

    • Chancellor takes long-term decisions to restore stability, rebuild Britain and protect working people across Wales.
    • No change to working people’s payslips as employee national insurance and VAT stay the same, but businesses and the wealthiest asked to pay their fair share.
    • Record £21 billion for the Welsh Government in 2025/26 includes £1.7 billion through the Barnett formula.
    • Funding for freeports, City and Growth Deals and coal tips to fire up growth and deliver good jobs across Wales.

    The Chancellor has delivered a Budget to fix the foundations to deliver on the promise of change after a decade and a half of stagnation. She set out plans to rebuild Britain, while ensuring working people across Wales don’t face higher taxes in their payslips. The UK Government was handed a challenging inheritance; £22 billion of unfunded in-year spending pressures, debt at its highest since the 1960s, an unrealistic forecast for departmental spending, and stagnating living standards.

    This Budget takes difficult decisions to restore economic and fiscal stability, so that the UK Government can invest in the economic future of Wales and lay the foundations for growth across the UK as its number one mission.

    The Chancellor announced that the Welsh Government will be provided with a £21 billion settlement in 2025/26 – the largest in real terms in the history of devolution. This includes a £1.7 billion top-up through the Barnett formula, with £1.5 billion for day-to-day spending and £250 million for capital investment.

    Secretary of State for Wales Jo Stevens said:

    This Budget has delivered for Wales for the first time in a generation.

    The biggest settlement since devolution will provide a record boost to spending for the Welsh Government to support public services like the NHS while thousands of working people across Wales will benefit from today’s increases to their wages.

    Little more than a week after the anniversary of Aberfan disaster it is fitting that we have committed £25m to make coal tips safe. It is testament to the new relationship between the UK and Welsh government, based on cooperation, respect and delivery.

    We will also drive economic growth and support our world-leading Welsh industries with Investment Zones, Freeports and funding for communities across Wales.

    We have prioritised money to support our steel communities, with nearly £100m to support workers and businesses.

    This Budget delivers on what’s important to the people of Wales, and shows the difference we can make when two governments work together for the benefit of all.

    Protecting working people and living standards

    While fixing the inheritance requires tough decisions, the Chancellor has committed to protecting the living standards of working people. The decisions taken by the Chancellor to rebuild public finances enable the UK Government to deliver on its pledge to not increase National Insurance or VAT on working people in Wales, meaning they will not see higher taxes in their payslip.

    • The National Living Wage will increase from £11.44 to £12.21 an hour from April 2025. The 6.7% increase – worth £1,400 a year for a full-time worker – is a significant move towards delivering a genuine living wage.
    • The National Minimum Wage for 18 to 20-year-olds will also see a record rise from £8.60 to £10 an hour.
    • Working people will benefit from these increases, with there estimated to be over 70,000 minimum wage workers in Wales in 2023.
    • The Chancellor has made the decision to protect working people in Wales from being dragged into higher tax brackets by confirming that National Insurance Contributions thresholds will be unfrozen from 2028-29 onwards.
    • The Chancellor is also protecting motorists by freezing fuel duty for one year – a tax cut worth £3 billion, with the temporary 5p cut extended to 22 March 2026. This will benefit an estimated 2.1 million people in Wales, saving the average car driver £59, vans £126 and Heavy Goods Vehicles £1,079 next year.
    • To support Welsh pubs and smaller brewers in Wales, the UK Government is cutting duty on qualifying draught products by 1p, which represent approximately 3 in 5 alcoholic drinks sold in pubs. This measure reduces duty bills by over £70 million a year, cutting duty on an average strength pint in a pub by a penny. The relief available to small producers will be updated to help smaller brewers and cidermakers.  
    • Over 600,000 Welsh pensioners will benefit from a 4.1% increase to their new or basic State Pension in April 2025. This is an additional £470 a year for those on the new State Pension and an additional £360 a year for those on the basic State Pension.
    • Households eligible for Pension Credit will get £465 a year more for single pensioners and up to £710 a year more for couples due to a 4.1% increase in the Pension Credit Standard Minimum Guarantee, benefitting 80,000 pensioners in Wales.
    • Around 1.1 million families in in Wales will see their working-age benefits uprated in line with inflation – a £150 gain on average in 2025-26.
    • Reducing the maximum level of debt repayments that can be deducted from a household’s Universal Credit payment each month from 25% to 15% will benefit a Welsh family by over £420 a year on average.
    • The weekly earnings limit for Carer’s Allowance will be increased by £45 a week from April next year, expanding support to more carers in Wales and helping them balance work and caring responsibilities. This is the largest ever increase to the earnings limit and provides certainty for carers with a commitment that the earnings limit will increase with the National Living Wage in the future.

    Rebuilding Britain

    This UK Government will not make a return to austerity and will instead boost investment to rebuild Britain and lay the foundations for growth in Wales. This includes £160 million of targeted funding for the Welsh Government, of which £150 million is in capital investment.

    • The UK Government will deliver £88 million for City and Growth Deals, unlocking growth and investment across Wales.
    • The government also confirms £80 million funding for the Port Talbot / Tata Steel Transition Board, with work already underway to support workers and businesses affected by decarbonisation at Tata Steel.
    • £29 million of funding will be provided to the Welsh Government for the necessary build costs of border facilities in Holyhead and Pembrokeshire.
    • Essential work being undertaken by the Welsh Government to keep disused coal tips maintained and safe will be supported by £25 million of funding in 2025/26.
    • The Budget gives certainty to local leaders and investors, confirming funding for the Investment Zones and Freeports programmes across the UK – including the Celtic Freeport where tax sites will be operational from next month.
    • The Chancellor committed the UK Government to working closely with the Welsh Government on the Industrial Strategy, 10-year infrastructure strategy and the National Wealth Fund – to ensure the benefits of these are felt UK-wide and as part of the relationship reset between governments. These will mobilise billions of pounds of investment in the UK’s world-leading clean energy and growth industries.
    • Under-served parts of Wales will benefit from the rollout of digital infrastructure enabled by over £500 million of UK-wide investment in Project Gigabit and the Shared Rural Network.
    • A corporate tax roadmap will provide businesses with the stability and certainty they need to make long-term investment decisions and support our growth mission. It confirms our competitive offer, with the lowest Corporate Tax rate in the G7 and generous support for investment and innovation.
    • The UK Government will also proceed with implementing the 45%/40% rates of the theatre, orchestra, museum and galleries tax relief from 1 April 2025 to provide certainty to businesses in Wales’ thriving cultural sector.

    Repairing public finances

    The Chancellor has made clear that, whilst protecting working people with measures to reduce the cost of living, there would be difficult decisions required. The Budget will ask businesses and the wealthiest to pay their fair share while making taxes fairer. This will go directly towards fixing the foundations of the UK economy.

    • The rate of Employers’ National Insurance will increase by 1.2 percentage points, to 15%. The Secondary Threshold – the level at which employers start paying national insurance on each employee’s salary – will reduce from £9,100 per year to £5,000 per year.
    • The smallest businesses will be protected as the Employment Allowance will increase to £10,500 from £5,000, allowing Welsh firms to employ four National Living Wage workers full time without paying employer national insurance on their wages.
    • Capital Gains Tax will increase from 10% to 18% for those paying the lower rate, and 20% to 24% for those paying the higher rate.
    • To encourage entrepreneurs to invest in their businesses Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) will remain at 10% this year, before rising to 14% on 6 April 2025 and 18% from 6 April 2026-27.
    • The lifetime limit of BADR will be maintained at £1 million. The lifetime limit of Investors’ Relief will be reduced from £10 million to £1 million.
    • The OBR say changes to CGT will raise over £2.5 billion a year and the UK will continue to have the lowest CGT rate of any European G7 country.
    • Inheritance Tax thresholds will be fixed at their current levels for a further two years until April 2030. More than 90% of estates each year will be outside of its scope. From April 2027 inherited pensions will be subject to Inheritance Tax. This removes a distortion which has led to pensions being used as a tax planning vehicle to transfer wealth rather than their original purpose to fund retirement.
    • From April 2026, agricultural property relief and business property relief will be reformed. The highest rate of relief will continue at 100% for the first £1 million of combined business and agricultural assets, fully protecting the majority of businesses and farms. It will reduce to 50% after the first £1 million. Reforms will affect the wealthiest 2,000 estates each year. Inheritance Tax reforms in total are predicted by the OBR to raise £2 billion to support stability.
    • From 2026-27 Air Passenger Duty (APD) for short and long-haul flights will increase by 13% to the nearest pound, a partial adjustment to account for previous high inflation. For economy passengers, this means a maximum £2 extra per short haul flight and tickets for children under the age of 16 remain exempt from APD. APD for larger private jets will be increased by a further 50%.

    The Budget also announced a package of measures that disincentivise activities that cause ill health, by:

    • Renewing the tobacco duty escalator which increases all tobacco duty rates by RPI+2% plus an above escalator increase to hand rolling tobacco (totalling RPI+12%).  
    • Introducing a new vaping duty at a flat rate of 22p/ml from October 2026, accompanied by a further one-off increase in tobacco duty to maintain financial incentive to choose vaping over smoking. 
    • To help tackle obesity and other harms caused by high sugar intake, the Soft Drinks Industry Levy will increase to account for inflation since it was last updated in 2018, and the duty will rise in line with inflation every year going forward.
    • The UK Government will also uprate alcohol duty in line with RPI on 1 February 2025, except for most drinks in pubs.

    The UK Government has set out the next steps to deliver its tax manifesto commitments in the July Statement. Having consulted on the final policy details where appropriate, this Budget delivers the UK Government’s manifesto commitments to raise revenue to pay for First Steps, with reforms that are underpinned by fairness, and tackle tax avoidance by:  

    • A new residence-based regime will replace the current non-dom regime from April 2025 and will be designed to attract investment and talent to the UK.
    • Offshore trusts will no longer be able to be used to shelter assets from Inheritance Tax, and there will be transitional arrangement in place for people who have made plans based on current rules.
    • The planned 50% reduction for foreign income in the first year of the new regime will be removed.
    • Reforms to the non-dom regime will raise a total of £12.7 billion according to the OBR.
    • The tax treatment of carried interest will be reformed by first increasing the Capital Gains Tax rates on carried interest to 32% and then, from April 2026, moving to a revised regime – with bespoke rules to reflect the characteristics of the reward.
    • The UK Government will also introduce 20% VAT on education and boarding services provided for a charge by private schools from 1 January 2025.

    The Chancellor also doubled down on fiscal responsibility through two new fiscal rules that put the public finances on a sustainable path and prioritise investment to support long-term growth, and new principles of stability. Spending Reviews will be held every two years, setting plans for at least three years to ensure public services are always planned and improve value for money. 

    One major fiscal event per year will give families and businesses stability and certainty on tax and spending changes, while giving the Welsh Government greater clarity for in its own budget-setting.  A Fiscal Lock will also ensure no future government can sideline the OBR again.

    Updates to this page

    Published 30 October 2024

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Crash, Tirau Road, Cambridge

    Source: New Zealand Police (District News)

    Emergency services are currently attending a single truck crash on Tirau Rd (SH1), Cambridge. 

    While there are no reports of any serious injuries, the road is blocked and traffic is building. 

    Please avoid the area if possible, or expect delays. 

    ENDS 

    Issued by Police Media Centre 

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Kedgwick — RCMP seeking public’s help locating a stolen snowmobile

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    The Saint-Quentin RCMP is seeking the public’s help to locate a stolen snowmobile from Kedgwick, N.B.

    The theft is believed to have occurred between September 14 and 29, 2024, at a residence on Route 17 in Kedgwick.

    The snowmobile is described as a sable 2024 Ski-Doo Summit X850 with vehicle identification number 2BPSTDRL5RV000008.

    If you have seen the snowmobile since September 14, or if you have information that could help further the investigation, please contact the Saint-Quentin RCMP at 506-235-2149. Information can also be provided anonymously through Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), by downloading the secure P3 Mobile App, or by Secure Web Tips at www.crimenb.ca.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Felon in Possession Sentenced to 12 Years in Prison Following Shooting at the Palm Beach Gardens Mall

    Source: United States Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

    MIAMI – A felon in possession of a firearm was sentenced to 144 months in prison, following a shooting at the Palm Beach Gardens Mall (The Gardens Mall) on Valentine’s Day.

    Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon imposed an upward variance in sentencing Devon Jamal Graham, 29, to 144 months in prison. Graham previously pled guilty to possession of ammunition by a convicted felon, possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon, possession with the intent to distribute a controlled substance containing fentanyl and cocaine, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.

    Kamarcio Mitchell, 29, a second man who was arrested following the shooting at The Gardens Mall, is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 21 at 9:30 a.m. before Judge Cannon in Fort Pierce, Fla. Mitchell previously pled guilty to possession of a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon, and possession with intent to distribute fentanyl.

    On Feb. 14, both Mitchell and Graham were at The Gardens Mall, both separately in possession of a firearm. Mitchell was on the second level of The Gardens Mall near a retail store. Mitchell followed Graham onto the escalator and was manipulating an object under his shirt. Mitchell was then fired upon by Graham and shot. Mitchell fled the mall to the parking lot, leaving a trail of blood. A loaded firearm that had been disassembled was found in the parking lot by police, near the blood trail. Mitchell was later treated for his injury at a local hospital. Upon his later arrest on a federal warrant, authorities discovered Mitchell in possession of a distribution quantity of fentanyl after he unsuccessfully tried to toss the drugs.

    Two firearms were recovered from the vehicle Graham used to travel to the mall, along with a bag containing 35 capsules with a mixture containing fentanyl and a pill bottle with approximately 16 grams of cocaine.

    The recovered firearms had previously travelled in interstate commerce.

    U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida, Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey B. Veltri of the FBI, Miami Field Office, Special Agent in Charge Christopher A. Robinson of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), Miami Field Division, U.S. Marshal Gadyaces S. Serralta of the U.S. Marshals Service, Chief Dominick Pape of the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department, and Sheriff Ric Bradshaw of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office announced the sentencing.

    The Office of State Attorney Dave Aronberg for the 15th Judicial Circuit – Palm Beach County provided invaluable assistance. Assistant U.S. Attorneys John McMillan and Shannon O’Shea Darsch are prosecuting the case.

    This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce gun violence and other violent crime, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone.  On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.  For more information about Project Safe Neighborhoods, please visit Justice.gov/PSN.

    Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or at http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov under case number 24-cr-80022.

    ###

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Colonialism, starvation and resistance: How food is weaponized, from Gaza to Canada

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Charles Z. Levkoe, Canada Research Chair in Equitable and Sustainable Food Systems, Lakehead University

    For more than a year, the Israeli state has been engaged in a massive incursion into Gaza following the October 2023 Hamas attack against Israel.

    In March 2024, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, announced: “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide…has been met.”

    A core element of this apparent genocide includes food militarization and weaponization, a tactic that has also been used by Canada to exterminate, dispossess and control Indigenous populations.

    We have come together as a group of critical food systems scholars to examine the parallels between the weaponization of food in Gaza and Canada to bring about the systematic destruction of Indigenous Peoples. But we’ve also observed that food has been a powerful tool of resistance and resurgence.



    Read more:
    Israeli siege has placed Gazans at risk of starvation − prewar policies made them vulnerable in the first place

    Food as a weapon

    Throughout modern history, food has been deployed as a weapon by colonial regimes to control and displace Indigenous populations. The current crisis in Gaza has brought this into sharp focus as the Israeli state has engaged in the systematic destruction of Palestinian food systems, with devastating consequences.

    Israel’s blockade of Gaza, in place since 2007, has cut off access to essential agricultural areas and restricted fishing activities. Gaza farmers are often unable to access their land, while fishers are constantly barred from accessing the coast, harassed, intimidated and even killed by Israeli forces.

    This blockade, combined with military operations that destroy farmland, trees and infrastructure, has resulted in more than 95 per cent of people in Gaza facing severe food insecurity and a famine declared by the United Nations experts in the summer of 2024.



    Read more:
    Starvation is a weapon of war: Gazans are paying the price

    Canada’s use of food weaponization

    Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the Canadian government employed similar tactics to restrict Indigenous Peoples’ access to land, food and water. Colonial policies like the Indian Act, the Homesteading Act and the Pass System confined Indigenous Peoples to reserves, prohibited hunting and fishing and forced reliance on inadequate government food rations.

    This led to malnutrition and starvation, particularly in response to Indigenous resistance to settler expansion. The use of food as a weapon was part of a broader project to eliminate or otherwise undermine Indigenous identity and self-determination, a process that continues today.

    From ongoing boil-water advisories to environmental degradation caused by mining, oil and gas extraction, forestry, agriculture and chemical production, settler governments and industries continue to dispossess Indigenous Peoples from their lands and undermine their livelihood.

    These practices have severely and disproportionately impacted Indigenous health and well-being, as well as their food systems.



    Read more:
    Colonialists used starvation as a tool of oppression

    The Scream, by Kent Monkman (2016), was part of a travelling exhibition in 2017 on colonized Canada entitled ‘Shame And Prejudice: A Story Of Resilience.’
    (Courtesy of Kent Monkman)

    Israel targets food infrastructure

    In the occupied Palestinian territories, Israeli control over land and resources reflects a similar colonial dynamic. Laws like the Absentee Property Law of 1950 facilitated the expropriation of Palestinian land.

    Meanwhile, the Israeli military has systematically targeted Gaza’s food infrastructure and used starvation as a weapon of war, according to Human Rights Watch. Satellite imagery shows that 70 per cent of Gaza’s tree cover has been eliminated or damaged, and about one-third of greenhouses have been demolished.

    Tanks and trucks have decimated orchards, field crops and olive groves.

    An estimated 800,000 tonnes of asbestos among the debris of destroyed buildings will result in asbestos-related diseases for generations to come. Under the Geneva Conventions, destruction of civilians’ means of survival and starvation as a tool of warfare is strictly prohibited.

    Food as resistance

    Food has also long been mobilized as a powerful tool of resistance. Among Palestinians, struggles for food sovereignty have played a critical role in self-determination.

    Palestinians continue to cultivate their land under the rubble, grow olive trees despite ongoing violence and maintain food practices that connect them to their lands and their cultural heritage.

    Similarly, Indigenous nations and communities across Canada have used food as a form of resurgence. Alongside land back movements, efforts to revitalize Indigenous food systems — such as hunting, fishing, growing and gathering — are central to movements for Indigenous sovereignty.

    Learning about and enacting traditional food practices are important acts of resistance, as these practices sustain communities, strengthen connections to land and assert rights over the unceded territories Indigenous Peoples are fighting to reclaim. By reclaiming and rebuilding their land and food systems on their own terms, they continue to challenge colonial structures.

    Food, colonialism and resistance

    The destruction of food systems in Gaza and Canada is part of a larger effort of land dispossession and capitalist accumulation. By severing Indigenous Peoples’ connection to their food systems, settlers and colonial regimes have sought to control not only the land but also the people who depend on it.

    Yet, through food sovereignty movements, these same populations are reclaiming their right to self-determination and building global networks of solidarity.



    Read more:
    Indigenous food sovereignty requires better and more accurate data collection

    The struggle for food sovereignty is inseparable from broader struggles for land, justice and self-determination.

    Connecting the dots between the Palestinian territories and Canada provides powerful examples of global colonial relations and struggles for justice and self-determination. It challenges us to critically examine the role of food in these struggles and demand government accountability.

    We wish to acknowledge Mustafa Koç, professor emeritus at Toronto Metropolitan University, as a co-author and to thank Max Ajl, Yafa Al Masri and Justin Podur for contributions to this article.

    Charles Z. Levkoe receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the the Government of Ontario.

    Sarah Rotz receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    Tammara Soma receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    Martha Stiegman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Colonialism, starvation and resistance: How food is weaponized, from Gaza to Canada – https://theconversation.com/colonialism-starvation-and-resistance-how-food-is-weaponized-from-gaza-to-canada-241525

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Barbour County Man Sentenced for Methamphetamine Charge

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    ELKINS, WEST VIRGINIA – James Marklin Mayle, age 67, of Philippi, West Virginia, was sentenced today to 130 months for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

    According to court documents and statements made in court, officers stopped Mayle’s vehicle and found nearly two pounds of methamphetamine. Mayle, also known as “Mark Mayle,” was transporting methamphetamine from Ohio into Barbour County.

    Mayle has a criminal history that includes drug possession, battery, assault, burglary, passing counterfeit money, and domestic violence.

    Mayle will serve three years of supervised release following his prison sentence.

    The case was investigated by the Mountain Region Drug Task Force. The Ohio State Highway Patrol assisted.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Warner prosecuted the case on behalf of the government.

    Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas S. Kleeh presided.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Boston Woman Pleads Guilty to Armed Robberies of Postal Workers

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    BOSTON – A Boston woman pleaded guilty today in federal court in Boston to the armed robberies of United States Postal Service (USPS) letter carriers on Nov. 29, 2022 in Mattapan, Mass. and Dec. 16, 2022 in Hyde Park, Mass.

    Myesha Lewis, 22, pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery of any person having lawful charge, control, or custody of any mail matter or of any money or other property of the United States, aiding and abetting and two counts of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees, aiding and abetting. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Dennis F. Saylor IV scheduled sentencing for Feb. 10, 2025. In May 2023, Lewis was indicted by a federal grand jury along with co-defendant Kenneth Demoshane.

    USPS has seen a rise in the use of arrow keys to facilitate the theft of U.S. Mail. An arrow key is a specific key designed to open designated blue USPS collection boxes in a specific area. These arrow keys are the property of USPS and it is a federal offense for an unauthorized person to possess one. Since July 2022, there have been at least 23 assaults on USPS letter carriers while in the performance of their official duties in Boston and surrounding cities and towns. These incidents included the attempted or successful robbery of USPS arrow keys from letter carriers. Additionally, of these 23 incidents, 15 of the robberies were instances where the perpetrators were reportedly armed with a knife, firearm, or both.

    On Nov. 29, 2022, in Mattapan, Lewis and Demosthene forcibly robbed a USPS letter carrier of an arrow key. Demosthene approached the letter carrier and said, “I’m going to need your master key,” before reaching into the letter carrier’s mail satchel and grabbing the arrow key. The key was secured around the letter carrier’s belt with a brass chain. The force used to physically break the brass chain caused the letter carrier to be pulled off the front steps. Lewis and Demosthene then fled the scene in a rental vehicle.

    On Dec. 16, 2022 in Hyde Park, Lewis and Demosthene robbed another USPS letter carrier of an arrow key at knife point. Demosthene approached the USPS letter carrier and said, “Give me your f****** arrow key.” The letter carrier put their hands in the air as the defendants attempted to remove the arrow key, at first by force pulling at the chain. Lewis and Demosthene then attempted to cut it with the knife, eventually breaking it loose and fleeing the scene on foot.  

    In October 2024, Demosthene was sentenced to three years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release.

    The charges of robbery of any person having lawful charge, control, or custody of any mail matter or of any money or other property of the United States each provide for a sentence of up to 25 years in prison, at least three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. The charges of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees each provide for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, at least three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

    Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy and Ketty Larco-Ward, Inspector in Charge of the United States Postal Inspection Service’s Boston Field Office made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was provided by the U.S. Postal Service, Office of the Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Luke A. Goldworm of the Major Crimes Unit is prosecuting the case.
     

    MIL Security OSI –