Author: Ethan Johnson
Samantha NobleBBC News, East MidlandsMay 23, 2024 09:59 BSTUpdated 35 minutes agoimage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Government takes over running HMP Lowdham Grange amid safety concernsThe Government is set to permanently take over the running of Nottinghamshire's prisons, months after a damning report was published.An inspection of HMP Lowdham Grange in August found a number of deficiencies, including high levels of violence and self-harm.The government provisionally took over a Category B prison in December.The company has now announced that making it permanent is “the best way to ensure continued improvement.”A report earlier this year said more than 120 prison staff…
In a stunning rebuke to government transparency, the state Legislature passed a bill this month that, if signed by Gov. Phil Murphy, would block New Jersey's Open Public Records Act and severely undermine the public's right to know in the Garden State.The passage would reverse decades of progress in providing access to public records at the local, county, and state levels, raising the alarm of government overreach by the public and my colleagues at the New Jersey Reporters Association. This is my opinion.In a previous editorial, Governor Murphy made it clear that the bill should not be signed. Governor, we…
what's happening?South Korean stocks were volatile, but ended almost flat on May 23, 2024, as gains in semiconductor manufacturers offset the decline in the overall market.What does this mean?The KOSPI index was little changed, closing at 2,721.81, down 1.65 points (0.06%), after dropping 0.71% the previous day. The stability was mainly due to Samsung Electronics' gain of 0.77% and SK Hynix's gain of 1.16%, after the South Korean government announced a robust 26 trillion won ($19 billion) support for the semiconductor industry. In addition, Nvidia's favorable earnings outlook also boosted sentiment at SK Hynix, a key supplier to the U.S.…
ljubljana – FAO Director-General QU Dongyu today visited the National Institute of Biology (NIB) in Slovenia and met with staff and researchers working in the fields of biotechnology, biological and ecosystem research. “Science-based solutions are essential to achieving sustainable agri-food system transformation. As the main United Nations specialized agency on food and agriculture, FAO is working with the Government of Slovenia and NIB to foster knowledge sharing. We are committed to supporting the efforts of scientists. With approximately 190 employees, the activities carried out at NIB are one of the independent public research institutes in life sciences in Slovenia. Related…
It all started with a strange phone call. At 4 a.m. on May 8, Gia Japaridze, a professor at the University of Georgia in Tbilisi, received a phone call from Chad. “I'm going to kill you, you bastard! Are you against this law? Then you're going against Georgia's values!” The professor blocked the number. An hour and a half later, he received another call from another foreign number with insults and death threats. The next evening, on his way home, three men attacked him with bats. “They were attacking me from all sides,” said Japaridze, 50, a former ambassador and…
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand's finance minister, Nicola Willis, warned in a speech on Thursday that a worsening economic outlook means the country is set to post a wider budget deficit next year.Finance Minister Willis told the Employers and Manufacturers Association in Auckland ahead of the Government's budget and financial outlook release on May 30 that the deteriorating economic outlook had made debt reduction efforts much more difficult.”But as the Florence and the Machine lyric I recently quoted goes, it's darkest before the dawn. The deficit is expected to be bigger next year than this year, and then start to…
My late father, Bert Ammons, served on the city council when the city of Kelso transitioned from a strongman city system to a mayor-council system.My father voted against Kelso, saying he didn't have the tax base to support reform. We looked up the population of Kelso and found that as of 2022, the number of citizens is 12,691. So, to pay the city manager $185,000 a year, every resident in the Kelso city area might have to pay $14.58 a year.Both Kelso and Longview have a council-mayor system of government, but they are just two of about 53 cities in…
When Ivanti devices were hacked earlier this year, the company's participation in an industry-government collaboration gave the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency a “head start” to combat the vulnerabilities, the agency's director said Wednesday. The cybersecurity firm linked an attack on Ivanti products in early 2024 to Chinese hackers, and the breach ultimately impacted CISA itself. In April 2023, Ivanti joined the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative, a project that has been panned by some, and CISA officials have acknowledged there is room for improvement. “This collaboration gave us a head start working with you when we discovered the vulnerability in…
Human rights group WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America) issued a statement on Wednesday in solidarity with groups in El Salvador fighting for citizens unjustly detained following a major gang crackdown in the country in March 2022.WOLA, along with 84 other advocacy groups, criticized the dramatic increase in surveillance and interference with human rights defenders by police and national intelligence agents. The measures known as the “state of exception” that came into force in March 2022 have made many advocacy groups the target of a concerted operation aimed at fragmenting their activities. For example, the Victims of the Regime movement…
Another metropolitan government is struggling with technical issues. This time, it's the Unified Government in Kansas City, Kansas, where both police and fire departments are experiencing email outages and phone lines are also intermittently down. In KCK, animal control is a department within the police department. A sign at that facility on Wednesday read, “Due to technical issues, we are unable to issue city licenses. We can only issue them by cash or check. We apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you.” Sebastian Manriquez was in a vain attempt Wednesday to renew the annual licenses for his two dogs. “They didn't…