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Qatar tribune Agencies Retailers used giveaways and big discounts to reward U.S. shoppers who ventured out for Black Friday even as earlier offers, the prospect of better bargains in the days ahead and the ease of e-commerce drained much of the excitement from the holiday shopping season’s much-hyped kickoff. Frequent deals throughout the month and more awaiting on Cyber Monday gave consumers less of a reason to squabble over store shelves while trying to get their hands on TVs or toys. But shopping malls and merchants big and small used the day after Thanksgiving to entice customers into physical stores at a time when many prefer to browse and buy online. Some Target shoppers lined up as early as 11:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day to get their hands on an exclusive book devoted to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and a bonus edition of her “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” album. Although both will be available purchase online starting Saturday, many locations sold out their supply of the products, the discount retailer said. At a Target in Southfield, Michigan, a few miles north of Detroit, Marge Evans, 32, used her cellphone to take and send photos of shirts, sweaters and other apparel with Black Friday markdowns. Her shopping cart was full, but she was shopping for an upcoming cruise with her fiance, not Christmas. “I’ll see what things are looking like the first week in January,” the 32-year-old massage therapist said. “Really, after the holidays are over is when the real deals come through. They get rid of everything.” Industry analysts observed Black Friday shoppers displaying the same choosy, deal-driven behavior many U.S. consumers exhibited all year while adjusting prices after the period of inflation that started toward the end of the coronavirus pandemic. At many stores, the huge crowds of Black Fridays past never returned after the pandemic. A Walmart in Germantown, Maryland, had only half of the parking spots filled on Friday morning. Some shoppers were returning items or buying groceries.Bharatharaj Moruejsan, a 35-year-old software engineer, decided to check out Walmart’s offers because he was jet-lagged after returning from a month-long family vacation to India. He scored an iPad for his 1-year-old daughter for $250, 32% off its original $370 price tag. “That’s a good deal,” Moruejsan said. After visiting stores and shopping centers on Long Island, Marshal Cohen, chief retail adviser at market research firm Circana, said that apart from people lining up for Target’s Taylor Swift merchandise, the number of shoppers appeared typical. “The spreading out of the holidays has created the lack of need and lack of urgency,” said Cohen, who had a 20-person team monitoring crowds nationwide. “This is going to be a long, slow tedious process” of getting shoppers to buy, he said.Michael Brown, a partner at management consulting firm Kearney, saw no lines at the Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey, 10 minutes before the 7 a.m. opening. “It’s not the old Black Friday that we used to know,” he said.Retailers that offered at least 40% off drove shoppers’ attention, according to Brown. For example, Forever 21 had 50% to 70% discounts and had lines to the stores, while H&M, which offered 30% discounts, was relatively quiet. Enough consumers still enjoy holiday shopping in person that Black Friday nonetheless was expected to retain its crown remains the biggest day of the year for retail foot traffic in the U.S., according to retail technology company Sensormatic Solutions. At Macy’s Herald Square in Manhattan, the setting for the 1947 Christmas movie “Miracle on 34th Street,” a steady stream of shoppers early Friday found some shoes and handbags priced half-off, special occasion dresses marked down by 30%, and 60% off the store’s luxury bedding brand. Keressa Clark, 50, and her daughter Morghan, 27, who were visiting New York from Wilmington, North Carolina, arrived at 6:15 a.m. “I am actually shocked to see so many Black Friday deals because so many things are online,” Morghan Clark said.Karessa Clark, who works as a nurse practitioner, said President-elect Donald Trump’s pending return to the White House made her feel better about the economy. She plans to spend $2,000 this holiday season, about $500 more than a year ago. Julie Rambo, a retired school teacher, shoved aside her worries about the incoming Trump administration as she shopped with her grandchildren at the Target in Southfield, Michigan.Rambo, 74, said she was “totally, completely scared of tariffs because I’m still going to need an automobile,” but it was a problem to confront later. As she does each year, she was primarily looking for Christmas gifts through a prison ministry for children with parents who are incarcerated. “As we’re shopping, we find things for ourselves too,” Rambo said.Online sales figures from Thanksgiving Day gave retailers a reason to remain hopeful for a lucrative end to the year. Vivek Pandya, the lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said consumers spent a record $6.1 billion online Thursday, 8.8% more than on Thanksgiving last year. Bigger-than-expected discounts helped spur spending on electronics, apparel and other categories, Pandya said. Across the board, Black Friday weekend discounts should peak at 30% on Cyber Monday and then retreat to around 15%, according to Adobe’s research. Analysts forecast a solid holiday shopping season overall in the U.S., though perhaps not as robust as last year. Retailers were even more under the gun to get shoppers in to buy early and in bulk since there are five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Shoppers at Lakeside Shopping Center in Metairie, Louisiana, were treated to a glass of champagne and a $50 gift receipt. “This is a nice touch. I was just talking to my best friend and rehashing over Thanksgiving so this was a nice little treat after that conversation. Everyone needs a little drink,” said Faren Kennedy, a Houston resident who was in town visiting family and wanted to stop at the mall for the nostalgia of Black Friday shopping. At Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, some 13,000 people showed up the first hour of its 7 a.m. opening, roughly 1,000 more than a year ago, according to Jill Renslow, the mall’s chief business development and marketing officer. The mall was on target to exceed the 200,000 Black Friday customer visits it received in 2023, Renslow said. Stores with deep discounts and promotions were the most packed, she said, citing Lego’s giveaway of a free retro record player with a $250 purchase. Stephen Lebovitz, CEO of CBL Properties, which operates 85 shopping properties, and Bill Taubman, president and chief operating officer of upscale mall landlord Taubman Realty Group, also said customer visits were up. Black Friday no longer is an American-only sales event. Retailers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the U.K. also appealed to holiday shoppers looking to save money. In India, about 200 Amazon warehouse workers and delivery drivers, rallied Friday in New Delhi, some wearing masks of Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, to demand better wages and working conditions. Similar protests were planned in other countries. Copy 01/12/2024 10When Nathan Hecht ran for the Texas Supreme Court in 1988, no Republican had ever been elected to the state’s highest civil court. His election foreshadowed a coming transformation of the court, civil legal procedure and Texas itself. Hecht is the longest tenured Supreme Court justice in Texas history. He won six reelections and led the court as chief justice for more than a decade. He heard more than 2,700 oral arguments, authored 7,000 pages of opinions, and retires now not because he’s had enough, but because state law requires him to. Late on a Friday afternoon, just two weeks before he hung up his robe, he was still in his office, his mind mired in the work that was left to be done. “This is always a really busy time for us, because the opinions are mounting up to be talked about,” he said. “It’ll be busy next week.” Hecht began as a dissenter on a divided court, his conservative positions on abortion, school finance and property rights putting him at odds with the Democratic majority and some moderate Republicans. But as Texas Republicans began dominating up and down the ballot, his minority voice became mainstream on one of the country’s most conservative high courts. In his administration of the court, Hecht has been a fierce advocate for the poor, pushing for more Legal Aid funding, bail reform and lowering the barriers to accessing the justice system. “If justice were food, too many would be starving,” Hecht told lawmakers in 2017. “If it were housing, too many would be homeless. If it were medicine, too many would be sick.” Hecht’s departure leaves a vacancy that Gov. Greg Abbott , a former justice himself, will get to fill. He may elevate a current justice or appoint someone new directly to the chief justice role. Whoever ends up in the top spot will have to run for reelection in 2026. In his typical understated manner, so at odds with the bombast of the other branches of government, Hecht told The Texas Tribune that serving on the court has been the honor of his life. “I have gotten to participate not only in a lot of decisions shaping the jurisprudence of the state, but also in trying to improve the administration of the court system so that it works better and fosters public trust and confidence,” he said. “So I feel good about the past,” he said. “And I feel good about the future.” Born in Clovis, New Mexico, Hecht studied philosophy at Yale before getting his law degree from Southern Methodist University. He clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and returned to Texas, where his reputation preceded him. As a young lawyer, Tom Phillips, a former chief justice and now a partner at Baker Botts, reached out to a Dallas law firm that had promised to hire him the next chance they got. “I called them a few months later and said, ‘So I assume you never got a vacancy,’” Phillips recalls. “And they said, ‘Well, we did, but we had a chance to hire Nathan Hecht, so you’ll understand why we went ahead and did that.’” Hecht was appointed to the district court in 1981 and quickly made a name for himself, pushing the court to modernize their stenography practices and taking the unusual step of writing opinions as a trial judge. He was elected to the court of appeals in 1986, and ran for Texas Supreme Court two years later. This race came at a low point for Texas’ judiciary, after a string of scandals, ethics investigations, eyebrow-raising rulings and national news coverage made several sitting Supreme Court justices household names — and not in a good way. Seeing an opportunity, Hecht challenged one of the incumbents, a Democrat who’d been called out in a damning 60 Minutes segment for friendly relationships with lawyers who both funded his campaigns and argued before the court. Hecht teamed up with Phillips and Eugene Cook, two Republicans who had recently been appointed to the court, and asked voters to “Clean the Slate in ’88,” separating themselves from the Democrats by promising to only accept small donations. “Party politics were changing in the state at the same time, but the broader issue on our court at the time was to ensure that judges were following the law,” Hecht said. “That was a driving issue.” Since Phillips and Cook were incumbents, Hecht was the only one who had to take on a sitting Supreme Court justice. And he won. “It really was a sea change in Texas political history,” Phillips said. “He was the first person ever to do that in a down ballot race, to defeat a Democrat as a Republican.” Republican dominance swept through the Supreme Court as swiftly as it did Texas writ large. The last Democrat would be elected to the court in 1994, just six years after the first Republican. But even among Bush-era Republicans filling the bench, Hecht’s conservatism stood out. In 2000, he wrote a dissent disagreeing with the majority ruling that allowed teens in Texas to get abortions with a judge’s approval if their parents wouldn’t consent, and a few years earlier, ruled in favor of wealthy school districts that wanted to use local taxes to supplement state funds. His pro-business bent stood out next to the court’s history of approving high dollar payouts for plaintiffs. Alex Winslow, the executive director of Texas Watch, a consumer advocacy group, told the New York Times in 2005 that Hecht was “the godfather of the conservative judicial movement in Texas.” “Extremist would be an appropriate description,” Winslow said. “He’s the philosophical leader of the right-wing fringe.” The only other justice who regularly staked out such a conservative position, according to the New York Times, was Priscilla Owen, who President George W. Bush appointed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2005. Hecht and Owen, who now goes by her maiden name, Richmond, wed in 2022 . Wallace Jefferson, Hecht’s predecessor as chief justice, said Hecht’s sharp intellect and philosophical approach to the law improved the court’s opinions, even when he ultimately didn’t side with the majority. “He was a formidable adversary,” said Jefferson, now a partner at Alexander Dubose & Jefferson. “You knew that you would have to bring your best approach and analysis to overcome Nathan’s approach and analysis ... You had to come prepared and Nathan set the standard for that.” Hecht briefly became a national figure in 2005 when he helped Bush’s efforts to confirm Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. As her longtime friend, Hecht gave more than 120 interviews to bolster Miers’ conservative credentials, jokingly calling himself the “PR office for the White House,” Texas Monthly reported at the time . This advocacy work raised ethical questions that Hecht fought for years, starting with a reprimand from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Hecht got that overturned. The Texas Ethics Commission then fined him $29,000 for not reporting the discount he got on the legal fees he paid challenging the reprimand. He appealed that fine and the case stretched until 2016 , when he ultimately paid $1,000. Hecht has largely stayed out of the limelight in the decades since, letting his opinions speak for themselves and wading into the political fray mostly to advocate for court reforms. While Democrats have tried to pin unpopular COVID and abortion rulings on the justices in recent elections, Republicans continue to easily win these down-ballot races. Hecht is aware of the perception this one-party dominance creates, and has advocated for Texas to turn away from partisan judicial elections. In his 2023 state of the judiciary address , Hecht warned that growing political divisions were threatening the “judicial independence essential to the rule of law,” pointing to comments by both Democratic politicians and former President Donald Trump. But in an interview, Hecht stressed that most of the cases the Texas Supreme Court considers never make headlines, and are far from the politics that dominate Austin and Washington. “There’s no Republican side to an oil and gas case. There’s no Democrat side to a custody hearing,” he said. “That’s the bread and butter of what we do, and that’s not partisan.” Unlike its federal counterpart, the Texas Supreme Court is often a temporary port of call on a judge’s journey. Many, like Abbott, Sen. John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett , leave for higher office. Others, like Owen and 5th Circuit Judge Don Willett, leave for higher courts. Most, like Phillips, leave for higher pay in private practice. But Hecht stayed. “I didn’t plan it like this,” Hecht said. “I just kept getting re-elected.” Hecht had been considering retirement in 2013, when Jefferson, the chief justice who replaced Phillips, announced he would be stepping down. “He wanted me to consider being his successor,” Hecht said. “So I did, and here I am. I didn’t say, ‘Let’s spend 43 years on the bench,’ but one thing led to another.” In 2013, Hecht was sworn in as chief justice by then-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, another great dissenter whose views later became the majority. While the Texas Supreme Court’s political makeup has changed largely without Hecht’s input, the inner workings of the court have been under his purview. And that, many court watchers say, is where his greatest legacy lies. Hecht ushered in an era of modernization, both to the technology and the rules that govern justice in Texas. He led a push to simplify the appellate rules, removing many of the trapdoors and procedural quirks that led to important cases being decided on technicalities. The court scaled back how long cases could drag on by limiting discovery, including how long a deposition can go. And he ensured every case was decided before the term ended, like the U.S. Supreme Court. “I think people generally don’t understand the impact the rules can have on the equitable resolution of disputes, but they’re enormous,” Jefferson said. “Nathan recognized that at an early juncture in his career.” Hecht pushed Texas to adopt e-filing before many other states, which proved prescient when COVID hit. Hecht, who was then president of the national Conference of Chief Justices, was able to help advise other states as they took their systems online. Hecht also dedicated himself to improving poor Texan’s access to the justice system, pushing the Legislature to appropriate more funding for Legal Aid and reducing the barriers to getting meaningful legal resolutions. He helped usher through a rule change that would allow paraprofessionals to handle some legal matters like estate planning, uncontested divorces and consumer debt cases, without a lawyer’s supervision. “Some people call it the justice gap. I call it the justice chasm,” Hecht said. “Because it’s just a huge gulf between the people that need legal help and the ability to provide it.” Hecht said he’s glad this has been taken up as a bipartisan issue, and he’s hopeful that the same attention will be paid even after he leaves the court. “No judge wants to give his life’s energy to a work that mocks the justice that he’s trying to provide,” he said. “For the judiciary, this is an important issue, because when the promise of equal justice under law is denied because you’re too poor, there’s no such thing as equal justice under the law.” Despite the sudden departure of their longtime leader, the Texas Supreme Court will return in January to finish out its term, which ends in April. Among the typical parsing of medical malpractice provisions, oil and gas leases, divorce settlements and sovereign immunity protections, the high court has a number of more attention-grabbing cases on its docket this year. Earlier this year, the court heard oral arguments about the Department of Family and Protective Services’ oversight of immigration detention facilities, and in mid-January, they’ll consider Attorney General Ken Paxton’s efforts to subpoena Annunciation House, an El Paso nonprofit that serves migrants. They’ll also hear arguments over Southern Methodist University’s efforts to cut ties with the regional governing body of the United Methodist Church. Other cases will be added to the schedule before April. Phillips, who has argued numerous cases before the Texas Supreme Court since leaving the bench, said Hecht’s loss will be felt, but he expects the court to continue apace. “It’s not a situation like it might have been at some point in the past where if one justice left, nobody would know what to do next,” he said. “It’s an extremely qualified court.” As for Hecht, he’s tried to put off thinking too much about what comes next for him. He still has opinions to write and work to finish. He knows he wants to stay active in efforts to improve court administration nationally and in Texas, and he’s threatened his colleagues with writing a tell-all book, just to keep them on their toes. But beyond that, he’s waiting for the reality of retirement to sink in before he decides on his next steps. “We’ve got 3,200 judges in Texas, plus adjuncts and associate judges and others,” he said. “I really think it’s such a strong bench, and I am proud to have been a part of it. I look forward to helping where I can.” This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
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Oak Valley Bancorp Stock Hits All-Time High at $30.81Even with technology taking over much of our day-to-day lives, board games still offer quality entertainment that can’t be beaten. Of course, the popular board games of today are a far cry from the games your parents grew up playing. Board games are perfect for encouraging your family to work together or for bringing your group of friends around the table for an evening. If you’d like to start up a weekly game night, let this helpful list of the most popular board games be your guide. Utter Nonsense Ages 8+ This game will have every player rolling in stitches with each ridiculous phrase that’s uttered. Combine crazy accents and hilarious phrases to impress the Nonsense Judge and win the round. The player with the highest number of wins ultimately wins the game, but the true fun of this card game is listening to your fellow players trying to say some of the most entertaining phrases of all time. This game is perfect for game nights or parties. Speak Out Ages 8+ This hilarious game is perfect if you have teenagers or are hosting a party with all adults. To play, you insert a mouthpiece that alters the sound of your speech, making every word sound silly. Set the timer and read one of the phrases on the cards and try to help your teammate guess what you’re saying. Speak Out easily provides hours of fun that even grandparents will love. Escape Room in a Box Ages 13+ What’s the next best thing to trying to break out of a room? Escape Room in a Box, of course. This thrilling, immersive game involves solving 2D and 3D puzzles in order to prevent a mad scientist from turning you and your friends or family into werewolves. Work together to escape your fate and use Amazon Alexa to enhance the experience. Codenames Ages 14+ This fun strategy game is perfect for anyone with teenagers. Form two teams and select a spymaster on each team. Using clues, spymasters try to help their teammates find all 25 of the agents they’re in contact with, hopefully without selecting the other team’s agents or running into the deadly assassin. This innovative game offers a challenging and rewarding time working together. Harry Potter Clue Ages 9+ Excite your kids on game night with this modern twist on a classic. Play as six recognizable Hogwarts characters — Harry, Hermione, Ron, Luna, Ginny or Neville — to solve the mystery behind a fellow student’s disappearance. It’s up to you to figure out who attacked the student, what bewitching spell they used and where it occurred. Watch out for the Dark Mark, moving staircases and secret passages as you travel along in this magical family game. Pandemic Ages 8+ If you’ve ever wanted to save humanity from a deadly outbreak, you’ll love spending an hour playing Pandemic. You and your teammates must fight to contain four deadly diseases threatening the human race. Players must learn to work with their teammates to control outbreak hotspots and treat diseases. Win the game by curing all diseases without wiping out humanity first. Catan Ages 10+ This tactical 60-minute game will push your imagination to its limits as you embark on a journey across Catan. Acquire crucial resources as you travel, build roads, buildings, and cities, and be wary of the ruthless robber and other players halting you on your own road. Through careful trading and clever decisions, you can lead your travelers to victory in this role-playing game of limitless possibilities. Play again and again. Every game is different. Ticket to Ride Ages 8+ Train lovers will enjoy this innovative board game which has won numerous awards. This cross-country train adventure game mimics the concept of traveling around the world in 80 days. Collect train cars and claim railways across the country. Players earn the most points by establishing long train routes and connecting distant cities. Each game takes roughly 30 to 40 minutes to complete, and every adventure is different. 5 Second Rule Ages 10+ This quick-paced game gives each player five seconds to name items on a certain topic. Although the topics are objectively easy —“Name 3 Mountains,” “Name 3 Types of Hats” or “Name 3 Super Heroes,” the pressure of the time crunch is likely to put you on edge. Race the clock and remain composed to win this game. You can even make up your own topics if you prefer. Half the fun is just hearing what other people blurt out, whether it’s relevant to the topic or not. Prices listed reflect time and date of publication and are subject to change. Check out our Daily Deals for the best products at the best prices and sign up here to receive the BestReviews weekly newsletter full of shopping inspo and sales. BestReviews spends thousands of hours researching, analyzing and testing products to recommend the best picks for most consumers. BestReviews and its newspaper partners may earn a commission if you purchase a product through one of our links.
By Emmanuel Oloniruha Gov. Abba Yusuf of Kano has cried out to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that opposition parties are going through ?hell. Yusuf said this while appealing to INEC to work on measures that would guarantee the survival of opposition parties in Nigeria. Yusuf made the appeal on Thursday in Abuja during the visit of INEC members to the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) office for routine party verification. The Kano governor who was represented by his Deputy Governor, Aminu Gwarzo, said that virile opposition was important for the survival of any democracy. “The opposition parties in this country are going through hell, politically. “All these crises, left, right and center, are artificial. They are being engineered and sponsored. “So, INEC should come up with ways to checkmate any untoward excess of any national government in power towards opposition. “I believe a vibrant opposition is the oxygen of democracy in any given situation. “Without any oxygen in the democracy, opposition is weak and dead, and democracy will fail,” Yusuf said. He, however, expressed confidence that the NNPP would in the nearest future win more elections including power at the central government. In his remarks, NNPP National Chairman, Ahmed Ajuji, pledged that NNPP would continue to play its role as the ruling party in Kano state, and a viable opposition in other parts of the country. He said that the annual verification exercise had laid to rest the falsehood by a group of expelled former members of NNPP claiming the management of the party had been handed over to them. “They claim that the management of the party has been handed over to them. “The fact that the electoral umpire, the regulator of parties, INEC have come here today to perform their statutory duty, shows that we have been, we are, and by God’s grace, shall continue to be the NNPP,” he said. Ajuji, however, warned members of the party against antiparty activities. “This is a democratic party. However, we shall not tolerate members who engage in anti-party activities to do so with impunity. “No matter how highly placed, all members are expected to remain disciplined and operate within the ambit of our constitution. The internal mechanisms of our party shall be guarded jealously,” he said. The party National Publicity Secretary, Ladipo Johnson, also said that the issue of leadership of the party was strictly a Constitutional matter based on the extant statutes and regulations. He described the judgment “purportedly obtained” by Dr Aniebonam and his group at Abia State High Court, Uzuakoli as a ruse and without substance. “It is pyrrhic “victory” and confers nothing to Chief Aniebonam and his co-travellers. “The judgment is a default judgment that was obtained by fraud and therefore liable to be set aside, which process of setting same aside has already commenced,” he said.(NAN)The escalating famine in Sudan is expected to spread to five more areas by May 2025, according to the global hunger monitor Tuesday as humanitarian aid fails to reach the famine-hit regions worsening the disastrous situation as regional parties war against each other. Famine conditions were confirmed in Abu Shouk and al-Salam, two camps for internally displaced people in al-Fashir, the besieged capital of North Darfur, as well as in residential and displaced communities in the Nuba Mountains, according to the Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Phase Classification (IPC). The committee also found that famine, first identified in August, persists in North Darfur's Zamzam camp. The five-member review committee vets and verifies famine findings produced by technical analysts. In its Tuesday report, the review committee predicts famine will expand to five additional areas in North Darfur — Um Kadadah, Melit, al-Fashir, Tawisha and al-Lait — by May. The committee identified another 17 areas across Sudan at risk of famine. The IPC estimated about 24.6 million people, about half of all Sudanese population, urgently requiring food aid through May, a sharp increase from the 21.1 million originally projected in June for October through February. The findings were published despite the Sudanese government's continued disruption of the IPC's process for analysing acute food insecurity, which helps donors and humanitarian groups direct aid where it is most needed. On Monday, the government announced it was suspending its participation in the global hunger-monitoring system, saying the IPC issues "unreliable reports that undermine Sudan's sovereignty and dignity." The IPC is an independent body funded by Western nations and overseen by 19 large humanitarian organisations and intergovernmental institutions. A linchpin in the world’s vast system for monitoring and alleviating hunger, it is designed to sound the alarm about developing food crises so organisations can respond and prevent famine and mass starvation. ALSO READ: World Food Day 2024: These 9 countries most affected by hunger and malnutrition The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are engaged in a civil war with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and are adamantly opposed to a famine declaration for fear it would result in diplomatic pressure to ease border controls and lead to greater foreign engagement with the RSF. In a Dec. 23 letter to the IPC, the famine review committee and diplomats, Sudan’s agriculture minister said the latest IPC report lacks updated malnutrition data and assessments of crop productivity during the recent summer rainy season. The growing season was successful, the letter says. It also notes "serious concerns" about the IPC's ability to collect data from territories controlled by the RSF. Under the IPC system, a "technical working group," usually headed by the national government, analyses data and periodically issues reports that classify areas on a one-to-five scale that slides from minimal to stressed, crisis, emergency and famine. In October, the Sudanese government temporarily stopped the government-led analysis, according to a document seen by Reuters. After resuming work, the technical working group stopped short of acknowledging famine. The Famine Review Committee report released today said the government-led group excluded key malnutrition data from its analysis. ALSO READ: UN Chief warns of famine risk in 4 countries A recent Reuters investigation found that the Sudanese government obstructed the IPC’s work earlier this year, delaying by months a famine determination for the sprawling Zamzam camp for displaced people where residents have resorted to eating tree leaves to survive. The civil war that erupted in April 2023 has decimated food production and trade and driven more than 12 million Sudanese from their homes, making it the world’s largest displacement crisis. The RSF has looted commercial and humanitarian food supplies, disrupted farming and besieged some areas, making trade more costly and food prices unaffordable. The government also has blocked humanitarian organisations’ access to some parts of the country. "We have the food. We have the trucks on the road. We have the people on the ground. We just need safe passage to deliver assistance," said Jean-Martin Bauer, director of food security and nutrition analysis for the UN's World Food Program. In response to questions from Reuters, the RSF said the accusations of looting were "baseless." The RSF also said millions of people in areas it controlled were facing "the threat of hunger," and that it was committed to "fully facilitating the delivery of aid to those affected." The government said that problems delivering aid were caused by the RSF. The IPC report says both parties to the conflict have imposed "bureaucratic procedures and approval processes" that "severely limit both the reach and scale of humanitarian efforts.” Only 10% of people in the areas the IPC reviewed received food assistance in the last three months, the IPC report says. At least a dozen aid workers and diplomats contacted by Reuters for this story said tensions increased between the Sudanese government and humanitarian aid organisations after the IPC determined Zamzam was in famine in August. The sources said the government is slowing the aid response. The government’s general and military intelligence services oversee aid delivery, subjecting international aid approvals to the SAF's political and military goals, the sources said. The government is slow to approve visas for aid workers, and several aid workers said it has discouraged NGOs from providing relief in the hard-hit Darfur region, which is largely controlled by RSF forces. The government has told aid organisations "there are no legitimate needs in Darfur, so you should not work there, and if you continue to respond to needs there, you should not expect visas," said one senior aid official, who asked not to be named. The number of visa applications awaiting approval for non-UN aid workers has skyrocketed in the last four months, and the percentage approved has plummeted, according to data maintained by Sudan's INGO Forum, which represents and advocates for international non-governmental organisations in the country. The government didn't respond to specific questions about the blocking of visas. In the past, it has said that the majority of visa requests are approved. In October, the Sudanese government pressured the UN to remove the top humanitarian aid official for Sudan's embattled Darfur region after the person traveled there without government authorisation, three sources told Reuters. Requests for authorization had stalled, the sources said. The government told the UN it would throw the official out if he was not withdrawn, the sources said. The government didn't respond to questions about the aid official's removal. A UN spokesperson said the organisation doesn't comment on staff "working arrangements."
A man who is accused of raping two women at gunpoint in a Framingham store in 1989 will be extradited to Massachusetts following his arrest in Los Angeles over the summer, authorities said. Stephen Paul Gale, 71, was arrested on Aug. 9 after an hour-and-a-half-long police chase down Interstate 405 northbound in Los Angeles, according to the U.S. Marshals Service . “After more than three decades it now appears that Gale’s attempts to evade justice have come to an end,“ Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement. “For the two women who were victimized by him in 1989, the wait for answers has been long and painful. While Mr. Gale has made significant efforts to conceal his identity, the efforts by law enforcement were even more relentless.” Gale is charged with four counts of aggravated rape, two counts of kidnapping and one count of armed robbery. Gale walked into the Hit of Miss Store on Route 9 in Framingham in December 1989, the district attorney said. He showed a .357 Magnum handgun and forced two female workers to the back of the store. He made one woman empty money from a locked safe, the store’s register and her pocketbook into a bag, the district attorney said. He made another woman lock the store’s doors and put a sign on the front door saying the store would open late. Gale then forced both women to strip and placed them in separate rooms, the district attorney said. He then sexually assaulted both of them at gunpoint, officials said. When Gale went back to the front of the store, the women left out the back door to a nearby home. Authorities collected evidence that helped get Gale’s DNA. In 2001, a DNA profile was developed for Gale and uploaded to the Combined DNA Index System, an FBI database used to compare DNA profiles. But, there weren’t any profiles that identified Gale. In 2022, law enforcement worked with Parabon Nanolabs, a DNA technology company, to develop new leads to identify Gale, the district attorney said. After a police investigation, DNA samples were taken from Gale’s family. These DNA samples were compared to Gale’s DNA. The evidence and results comparing the two profiles led police to label Gale as the suspect. More News
Nvidia, IBD Stock Of The Day, Offers Early Buy Point As It Crosses Key Levels
