Divers helping in search for evidence in hunt for New York healthcare CEO killerSamsung dropped new phones and devices in July , which means that there are plenty of discounts and coupons on mobile devices, like the Galaxy A35 smartphone -- a nearly perfect option for older kids and teens or anyone looking for an affordable, no-nonsense smartphone as holiday gifts or replacements for lost or damaged devices. And right now at Amazon, you can save $140 when you buy a Samsung Galaxy A35 and a pair of Buds FE wireless earbuds together. It's a win-win for kids and parents: they get a sleek (but affordable) smartphone and a pair of cool wireless earbuds to argue with the iPhone kids about at the bus stop, and you get to save a bit of money as you check items off your holiday shopping list. Also: The best Black Friday deals live now The Samsung Galaxy A35 on-offer for the bundle comes with 128GB of internal storage, but if you ever need more space, it supports up to a 1TB microSD card. It also uses an AMOLED display for great color, contrast, and detailing. It features a 13MP front-facing camera, while the rear of the phone has 8MP ultra-wide, 50MP wide-angle, and 5MP macro lenses, allowing you to create various photography styles on a single device. It's even IP67-rated for water and dust resistance, so you won't have to worry about a bit of rain or spilled water destroying your new phone. Also: Why Samsung's Galaxy A35 is the mid-ranger to beat in 2024 The Buds FE are a relatively affordable pair of wireless earbuds from Samsung, offering a mid-range option for customers looking for premium features like active noise cancellation without the premium price. They feature a redesigned wingtip for a more comfortable and secure fit inside your ear so you can enjoy your music, podcasts, and videos and less time hunting for your earbuds on the couch. With Tap Connect, you can instantly pair the earbuds to your Samsung smartphone, tablet, or smartwatch, or you can pair them with two devices simultaneously and flip between them with the auto switch feature. This makes them an excellent option for anyone who has separate devices for work and personal use and doesn't want the hassle of disconnecting and reconnecting earbuds every time you switch devices. Don't miss a chance to nab this Samsung bundle offer . When will this deal expire? The Amazon listing for the Galaxy A35 and Buds FE bundle doesn't have an expiration countdown or "limited time deal" tag, but that doesn't mean that this deal will last forever. There may be limited stock available for this bundle at this price, or Samsung may change the terms of the deal at some point in the future (and not necessarily for the good of your wallet), so you won't want to wait to snag this bundle. Best VPN services Best robot vacuums and mops The best phones you can buy (and how the iPhone 16 Pro Max compares) The best laptops you can buy: Expert testedThe New York Jets' season is quickly going down the drain, and sitting at 3-8 while on their bye week, there's still plenty of noise around the franchise. A big question being asked is what the futures of Davante Adams and Aaron Rodgers look like beyond 2024, with the pair not guaranteed to be with the franchise after this season. With the Jets struggling and the offense showing little sign of improving despite a host of efforts made to turn things around, nothing seems to have fixed their current issues. Thought to be joint at the hip, Adams and Rodgers might not be Jets next year, with the franchise possibly going in a different direction as the experiment has clearly failed. But for Davante, his or Aaron's future isn't a topic of discussion. “At this point, it's really not something that gets brought up day-to-day because we both have a positive mindset and the way that we want to attack every week,” Adams said on the Up & Adams Show . “So if we get to talking about him being on a different team, me being on a different team, like that's just not what we need in our heads right now. We got to put nothing but positive energy and thoughts out there and just keep working. “I mean, we got six weeks left, and like I said, we're not out of it. The chances are really low, we see all the percentages and all this stuff, but at the end of the day, all we can do is worry about the next game.” Ed Mulholland-Imagn Images With the Jets' season heading south, the big question that fans and the organization must ask themselves is, will Rodgers and Adams be part of the change next season? Related: Jets Reveal Major Decision Regarding Play-Calling Switch There are many thoughts that Rodgers will be done in New York after 2024, and where that leaves Adams and his situation with the Jets is unknown, but its anything but an easy solution. The Jets still have six games to go to try to salvage something from the year, and that is all that is occupying Adams and Rodgers' minds, but they wouldn't be human if they weren't looking ahead to what might potentially be on the horizon in 2025. Related: Jets Explain Bizarre Benching Of Young Starter

A man has died on the A34 today (stock image) A man has tragically died on a UK road after a tree fell on his car. It is not yet clear if the tree falling onto the man's car is related to Storm Bert, but the weather front has caused travel... Alex EvansLANGHORNE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 22, 2024-- Savara Inc . (Nasdaq: SVRA), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on rare respiratory diseases, today announced the grant of inducement awards to four new employees. On November 20, 2024, the Compensation Committee of Savara's Board of Directors granted the inducement awards to four new employees who recently joined the Company. The inducement awards consist of options to purchase an aggregate of 80,000 shares of the Company’s common stock and restricted stock units (RSUs) covering an aggregate of 70,000 shares of the Company’s common stock. These equity awards were granted under the Savara Inc. 2021 Inducement Equity Incentive Plan pursuant to Rule 5635(c)(4) of the NASDAQ Listing Rules as an inducement material to the employees’ acceptance of employment with the Company. The options have an exercise price of $3.13 per share, the closing trading price of the Company's common stock on the NASDAQ Global Market on the grant date. Each option has a 10-year term and vests as to 1/16 th of the number of shares subject to the option on each quarterly anniversary of the employee’s first day of employment, subject to the employee’s continued employment on each such vesting date. The RSUs vest in full on the two-year anniversary of the employee’s first day of employment, subject to the employee’s continued employment on such vesting date. About Savara Savara is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on rare respiratory diseases. Our lead program, MOLBREEVI*, is a recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) in Phase 3 development for autoimmune pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (aPAP). MOLBREEVI is delivered via an investigational eFlow ® Nebulizer System (PARI Pharma GmbH). Our management team has significant experience in rare respiratory diseases and pulmonary medicine, identifying unmet needs, and effectively advancing product candidates to approval and commercialization. More information can be found at www.savarapharma.com , X: @SavaraPharma , LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/savara-pharmaceuticals/ ). *MOLBREEVI is the FDA and EMA conditionally accepted trade name for molgramostim inhalation solution. View source version on businesswire.com : https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241122399085/en/ CONTACT: Media and Investor Relations Contact Savara Inc. Temre Johnson, Executive Director, Corporate Affairs ir@savarapharma.com KEYWORD: PENNSYLVANIA UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: HEALTH OTHER HEALTH CLINICAL TRIALS GENERAL HEALTH PHARMACEUTICAL BIOTECHNOLOGY SOURCE: Savara Inc. Copyright Business Wire 2024. PUB: 11/22/2024 04:05 PM/DISC: 11/22/2024 04:06 PM http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241122399085/enHoroscope Today: Astrological prediction for November 28, 2024South Africa’s GNU boosts Old Mutual’s growth amidst challenging conditions

After-hours movers: HP Inc., Dell Technologies, Workday and moreDo animals have conscious experiences? This past April, a group of biologists and philosophers unveiled The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness at a conference at New York University in Manhattan. The statement declared that there is “strong scientific support for attributions of conscious experience to other mammals and to birds.” It also said that empirical evidence points to “at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience” in all vertebrates and many invertebrates, including crustaceans and insects. Researchers have found myriads of indications of perception, emotion, and self-awareness in animals. The bumblebee plays. Cuttlefish remember how they experienced past events. Crows can be trained to report what they see. Given these findings, many believe there should be a fundamental shift in the way that humans interact with other species. Rather than people assuming that animals lack consciousness until evidence proves otherwise, researchers say, isn’t it far more ethical to make decisions with the assumption that they are sentient beings with feelings? “All of these animals have a realistic chance of being conscious, so we should aspire to treat them compassionately,” says Jeff Sebo, director of the Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy at New York University. “But you can accept that much and then disagree about how to flesh that out and how to translate it into policies.” Sasha Prasad-Shreckengast is trying to get into the mind of a chicken. This is not the easiest of feats, even here at Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, a scenic hamlet in the rolling Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. For decades the sanctuary has housed, and observed the behavior of, farm animals – like the laying hens Ms. Prasad-Shreckengast is hoping to tempt into her study. Chickens, it turns out, have moods. Some might be eager and willing to waddle into a puzzle box to demonstrate innovative problem-solving abilities. But other chickens might just not feel like it. Ms. Prasad-Shreckengast also knows from her research, published this fall in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, that some chickens are just more optimistic than others – although pessimistic birds seem to become more upbeat the more they learn tasks. “We just really want to know what chickens are capable of and what chickens are motivated by when they are outside of an industrial setting,” Ms. Prasad-Shreckengast says. “They have a lot more agency and autonomy. What are they capable of, and what are they interested in?” In other words, how do chickens really think? And how do they feel? And, to get big picture about it, what does all of that say about chicken consciousness? In some ways, these are questions that are impossible to answer. There is no way for humans, with their own specific ways of perceiving and being in the world, to fully understand the perspective of a chicken – a dinosaur descendant that can see ultraviolet light and has a 300-degree field of vision. Yet increasingly, scientists like Ms. Prasad-Shreckengast are trying to find answers. What they are discovering, whether in farm animals, bumblebees, dogs, or octopuses, is a complexity beyond anything acknowledged in the past. (At least in Western culture, that is. The 17th-century philosopher René Descartes, for example, ushered in an influential idea that understood animals to be mere mechanical “automatons.” Ascribing feelings or emotions to animals, he and his many followers believed, was misguided.) Researchers have found myriads of indications of perception, emotion, and self-awareness in animals. The bumblebee plays. Cuttlefish remember how they experienced past events. Crows can be trained to report what they see. As a result, a growing number of scientists and philosophers believe there is at least a realistic possibility of “conscious experience” in all vertebrates, including reptiles and fishes, and many invertebrates. Given these findings, many believe there should be a fundamental shift in the way that humans interact with other species. Rather than people assuming that animals lack consciousness until evidence proves otherwise, isn’t it far more ethical to make decisions with the assumption that they are sentient beings with feelings? Ms. Prasad-Shreckengast’s study takes place in the wide hallway of Farm Sanctuary’s breezy chicken house. Unlike in pretty much any other chicken facility, the birds here come and go as they please from spacious pens. Following up on her previous research, she has designed a challenge that she hopes will appeal to most of her moody chickens. It is a ground-level puzzle box, with a push option, a pull option, and a swipe option. Birds are rewarded with a blueberry when they solve a challenge. There is also a free treat option in the puzzle box, a way for the researchers here to measure something called “contrafreeloading.” This term describes a behavior animals demonstrate when they choose to work for a reward rather than just freeloading from readily available food. (Scientists are still debating why most animals contrafreeload. They are also interested in the exception to the rule: the domesticated cat, who appears perfectly happy to take food without expending any effort.) Team members monitor a series of gates to the puzzle block, opening them when the birds are inclined to enter and letting them out if the chickens have had enough. The idea of consent – which is a basic, foundational principle in the study of human behavior – is also a hallmark of animal studies here at Farm Sanctuary. To the uninitiated, this might sound absurd, with images of chickens signing above the dotted line. But it is not actually all that rare. Studies of dogs, dolphins, and primates all depend on the animals agreeing, in their own way, to participate. Behavioral data would be skewed without it. And before she came to Farm Sanctuary, Ms. Prasad-Shreckengast worked in a canine cognition lab. Few people would bring their pet dogs in for research and then force them to do things they don’t want to do, she points out. So consent matters from both a scientific point of view and an ethical one, she says. A group of Biologists and philosophers this past April unveiled The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness at a conference at New York University in Manhattan. The statement declared that there is “strong scientific support for attributions of conscious experience to other mammals and to birds.” It also said that empirical evidence points to “at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience” in all vertebrates and many invertebrates, including crustaceans and insects. Since April, hundreds more scientists and moral thinkers around the world have added their names. Spearheaded by Kristin Andrews, professor of philosophy and the research chair in animal minds at York University in Canada, the idea emerged from conversations she had with two colleagues, Jonathan Birch, a philosopher at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Jeff Sebo, director of the Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy at New York University. The three were talking about all the new research demonstrating the complexity of animals’ inner lives. They wondered if there was a way to highlight how these studies were shifting attitudes. “People were dimly aware that new studies were identifying new evidence for consciousness – not only in birds, but also reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and then a lot of invertebrates, too,” says Dr. Sebo. “But there was no central, authoritative place people could look for evidence that the views of mainstream scientists were shifting.” Discovery after discovery over the past decade has illuminated an increasingly complex, communicative, and feeling world of nonhuman creatures. For instance, trees communicate, and fungal networks send messages throughout a forest. Species such as sea turtles and bats use electromagnetic fields, a force we cannot even perceive, to guide their movements and migrations. Snakes see infrared light, birds and reindeer see ultraviolet light, and dolphins use sound waves to navigate underwater. Author and journalist Ed Yong uses the German term umwelt to describe an organism’s unique sensory perspectives. His book “An Immense World” details the various ways animals experience their world. He uses the metaphor of a large house with many windows looking onto a garden. Each animal has its own window. But there are other windows as well, each with a different view of the same place. We humans have our own window, our own particular umwelt . Our eyes see only certain wavelengths and frequencies of light. Our ears perceive limited ranges of sound. Our noses have limited ranges of smell. For generations, the dominant perspective has been that the human perspective is the best view in the house, with the most complex and complete picture of reality. But there hasn’t been a species studied over the past 20 years that hasn’t turned out to exhibit pain. There hasn’t been a species that hasn’t turned out to be more internally complicated than people expected, Dr. Andrews says. “There hasn’t been any animal that we’ve looked at and asked, ‘Do they feel pain with the set of pain markers that are well established?’ And we’ve said, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s zero evidence,’” she says. “We don’t find any of them. “So my view is that we’re going to be finding these kinds of indicators of cognitive behavior, of behaviors indicating animals feel pain or feel pleasure, in probably all animals.” But does that mean consciousness? “Just that word, ‘consciousness,’ is the problem,” Dr. Andrews says. “The thing that everybody in the field agrees on is that consciousness refers to feeling – ability to feel things. ... But then if you start asking people to give a real, concrete definition of consciousness, they’re not able to do it.” The concept of consciousness has kept a small army of moralists, physicists, and theologians busy for generations. Today there is an entire field called “consciousness science,” in which academics debate the philosophical and physiological meanings of the word. The concept, after all, can take on different tones. Anesthesiologists have one interpretation of “conscious.” Psychologists have another. Philosophers and religious scholars also have their own varying views. An increasing number of mainstream scientists and researchers also point to a consciousness that is outside individuals, sometimes called “universal consciousness.” For the purposes of the declaration, researchers said, they focused on what is called “phenomenal consciousness.” This is the idea that “There is something that it’s like to be a particular organism,” explains Christopher Krupenye, professor of psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Phenomenal consciousness can be a bit of a hard concept to get one’s head around at first, he says. But it basically means that an animal experiences the world not as a machine, but as a being. Phenomenal consciousness is what you are experiencing right now in your body with the sight of words on a page as you read this article. There is another type of consciousness often called “metacognition,” in which a being is aware of what’s going on in its own mind. It is recognizing, for instance, that the temperature you feel is unpleasant, and then thinking that perhaps you should turn up the thermostat. It is recognizing that the words on the page are too small and that you should grab your reading glasses. “Theory of mind” is another connected concept. You recognize that another person reading this article is not you, but that they can have an experience similar to yours. Current research, including Dr. Krupenye’s, suggests that both dogs and primates display all these forms of consciousness. In one of his studies, for instance, he was able to track eye movements of chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans in order to gauge whether or not they expected an unseen ape to see them through a transparent barrier. He found these primates were able to assume another being was having a similar but different experience from what they were having themselves, given their own perspective on the world. Other studies show that dogs look to their owners for assistance when they do not understand a command, and that they look for clues and more information when they are having difficulty solving a task. Researchers believe this indicates dogs recognize their own ignorance – a sign of metacognition. But of course there’s no way to prove, or even fully understand, what dogs or apes are experiencing, Dr. Krupenye says. “You’re identifying one of the core philosophical challenges in this area of research,” he says. “With the case of phenomenal consciousness, in humans we take it as the case that if they verbally report they feel X or Y, we agree that’s what they are feeling. With animals, we can’t ask directly for them to verbally report.” So researchers use alternative indicators to gauge how a nonhuman animal is thinking or feeling – such as tracking eye movement. But even this gets tricky. What about an animal whose umwelt isn’t visual at all? “My dog’s experience of the world is much more dominated by smell data and much less by sight data,” says Dr. Sebo. “Different kinds of experiences might cause them different bodily pleasure and pain, but also different emotional pleasure and pain.” For years, researchers were cautioned not to anthropomorphize their subjects, or bestow human traits upon other animals. Most scientists still agree with many of the tenets of this. Dogs, for instance, don’t necessarily like what humans like, and most researchers agree that it is ethically important to keep those distinctions in mind. Think here about a dressed-up poodle. Its clothing and accessories are about human preferences. But the poodle might prefer an odor on the neighbor’s lawn. That’s a dog preference. Ethicists say it is important to be aware of this distinction, and not behave as if the poodle actually loves pompoms. Many animal researchers now say worries about anthropomorphism went too far. The human umwelt might be different from those of other animals, they say, but there is still a deeper quality of being-in-the-world that is similar. Heather Mattila, a biologist at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, generally tries to sidestep the question of consciousness in the bees she studies – even though it’s what most interests her students. Trying to determine consciousness leads down a complicated philosophical path, she says. It is difficult to prove anything. She is an empirical scientist, which is all about working with solid, replicable studies. But in her personal opinion, there’s no question: Bees likely have consciousness. She watches bees map locations, share information, and dance in a way that appears excited when they have found a particularly tasty food source. (She has learned to write “vigorous” rather than “excited” in research papers to avoid sparking the critiques of reviewers.) Other researchers have also detected play behavior in some bees. All in all, the insect’s behavior reminds her of the rescued dog she grew up with – an animal that convinced her that other species had full personalities and cognition. “In a human mind, we would just assume consciousness is involved,” Dr. Mattila says. But assuming consciousness in other species brings up profound moral quandaries. If it turns out that animals do have feelings, or if they do participate in this big, amorphous concept called consciousness, what would that mean for the way humans interact with the rest of the living world? The scholars who signed the New York declaration tried to stay ambiguous on that point. “All of these animals have a realistic chance of being conscious, so we should aspire to treat them compassionately,” says Dr. Sebo at New York University. “But you can accept that much and then disagree about how to flesh that out and how to translate it into policies.” For Dr. Mattila and others, the possibility of consciousness has meant limiting the extent to which her scientific experiments cause harm. “I know many strict vegans would not approve of me keeping honeybees on campus, but I feel like I’m supporting them,” Dr. Mattila says. “I specifically try to do experiments that don’t cause them pain or suffering. ... I try to let them have a good life and observe how they operate within that good life.” But it also has her thinking more broadly about how humans and other animals cross paths and interact with each other. Should the real possibility of complex animal consciousness make a difference in where we build roads? Should it guide how we “consciously” take control of ecosystems? And should it impact how, and what, we eat? Such ethical considerations could impact an array of human activity. “It’s culturally inconvenient to think that animals are conscious,” Dr. Mattila says. Especially farm animals. Although research on animal sentience and intelligence has expanded to include a host of different species, there is still a gap when it comes to the animals we kill for food. The agricultural industry has long focused on animal welfare within the context of the food system, and there have been industry-wide efforts to slaughter animals in the most humane way possible. But a group of international researchers in 2019 published a report in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science that found a decided lack of information on the “physico-cognitive capacities” of farm animal species. While there has been loads of research on animal husbandry, there has not been all that much investigation into animals’ conscious experiences outside their role as food products for humans. To Ms. Prasad-Shreckengast and others at Farm Sanctuary, there are clear reasons for this. The first is that we generally want to distance ourselves from those creatures we eat. Multiple studies have shown that meat-eaters engage in something called “cognitive dissociation” to help alleviate the discomfort that comes if one starts to learn about the emotions or physical experiences of a pig or cow or chicken. But there are also funding issues. Most scientific research on farm animals is funded by agricultural schools focused on industrial practices or is funded by large agribusiness companies themselves. And farm animals generally live in a way that some scientists say is not conducive to understanding individual sentience. “When you’re thinking of chickens, specifically in a barn with 30,000 chickens, you can’t see an individual,” says Ms. Prasad-Shreckengast. The study she published this October focused on the behavior of Cornish hens – usually slaughtered after they reach 6 weeks of age. There isn’t a lot of existing information about the Cornish hen’s interior life, she says, because they aren’t usually allowed to live long enough to study as adults. Farm Sanctuary is explicit in its promotion of a vegan diet – it was founded by a California-born animal activist named Gene Baur, whose work revealing animal cruelty at industrial farms and slaughterhouses helped lead to animal welfare laws. Because of that, however, critics have called its animal science research biased – a charge researchers here reject. “There’s no reason to not offer somebody the benefit of the doubt of sentience, the benefit of the doubt of consciousness, and to provide research methods that respect their agency and autonomy,” Ms. Prasad-Shreckengast says. “You can still do really good science with those ethics in place.” On tours at Farm Sanctuary, guides introduce visitors to goats who make family groups; cows who, when no longer confined to dairy barns, prance and play and take care of their young; and pigs who, given the space, build themselves nests in a barn but go outside to relieve themselves. It is an explicit effort to introduce humans to the individuals within other species, says Mr. Baur. The purpose is simple: to normalize empathy for fellow creatures. “What we’re trying to achieve here are relationships of mutuality with us and other animals, where everyone benefits by the interaction, instead of relationships of extraction, where those with power take from those without,” he says. Promoting a vegan ethic, however, isn’t the only valid way to understand the relationship between humans and farm animals – even for those convinced they have consciousness. For Dr. Andrews, the key thinker behind the New York declaration, the question of how to live in a world of infinite consciousnesses has more to do with negotiation than with moral absolutes. She believes it is impossible to completely avoid causing harm. The bacteria on our skin are disrupted when we wash. Animals in the wild eat other animals. When she finds flower- eating aphids in her garden, she kills the insects to save the plants. “It’s about acknowledging that harms are part of life, and we’re committing some harms, but we’re trying to minimize the harm that we do when we’re making our choices,” Dr. Andrews says. It’s also recognizing that humans are not separate or unique, but part of an ecosystem with a dazzling array of individuals and understandings of the world – and a dazzling array of consciousness. “It’s driving us to see ourselves as part of an integrated system of biology,” she says. “And that is probably better for the planet.”

After their recent T20 World Cup success, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) have reappointed White Ferns head coach Ben Sawyer for a further two years. Sawyer, a 46 year-old Australian, was first appointed in June 2022 on a two-year contract, which was later extended until the end of the side’s tour to India in October, a three-match tour which immediately followed that unexpected victory on the global stage. He will now remain in charge until December 2026, which means he will oversee the 50-over World Cup in India in September and October next year, as well as the defence of their T20 World Cup in England in 2026. New Zealand Cricket started their review of Sawyer’s position before the squad departed for Australia in the run-up to the recent T20 World Cup, a deliberate decision to minimise disruption and distraction during the tournament. NZC Head of Women’s High Performance, Liz Green, feels that under Sawyer, the recent success is just the beginning for this side. “I guess to the naked eye, performances over the last 12 months are one story, but internally we always knew what we were trying to achieve with this group and what Ben inherited as a coach two years ago was quite a young developing group, so first and foremost his priority and task and focus has been to develop this team. The performances might not have always been seen in terms of the win column, but internally we were seeing players develop and that for us was why we wanted to complete that review before the World Cup,” Green says. Green confirms that as part of the review, NZC spoke to all the players and staff, as well as other stakeholders who feed into the White Ferns programme, such as the head coaches of the major association sides around the country “For us, removing any bias of performances was pretty crucial and it was quite an extensive review. It really focused on that learning process with the fact that Ben was tasked with developing the playing group and what we were learning over the past two years and what’s been the good, the bad and the ugly,” she says. “I think the first two years of Ben’s tenure, we’re only scratching the surface. We’ve built a really strong support group around Ben. We’ve got a really strong, developing cohort of White Ferns who are starting to put their hands up and believe in themselves,” she says. Sawyer himself is delighted to be able to continue the work he and the other staff have started. “I want to thank New Zealand Cricket for their support and for their leadership. It was always about trying to develop this team, so, I’m really grateful and have to thank the selectors who made some hard calls when they let a few senior players go. My job was then to see that through,” Sawyer says. “They made some really good calls around the likes of Izzy Gaze and Georgia Plimmer and they saw something in those kids and it was my job to try and stick with that and at times that was tough, but I always had that support from New Zealand Cricket that we were developing them. Did I think it would come as fast as it did with the T20 World Cup? No I didn’t, but I thought they were tracking along and in Australia [before the T20 World Cup] I thought there were signs that things were turning and we were seeing improvements,” he says. Sawyer says he now has two major goals in his head. First the two pinnacle events, the ODI World Cup next year and the T20 World Cup the year after. But more importantly he thinks his job over the next two years is to build depth. “I’d love to have eight or nine batters fighting for six spots who are genuinely fighting for those spots. I think if we’re being honest, we can see that the bowlers at the moment are fighting for spots. I’ve had to leave Hannah [Rowe] and Jess [Kerr] out at times, and even Molly [Penfold] and they are playing for spots and I think that means we are getting the best out of them,” Sawyer says. “My job, and I feel the system’s job, and all the coaches in the major associations, is if we can build the batting stocks as well, then I think we’re in a really good spot. If we can create eight or nine really strong batting prospects, I think that’s going to get the best out of the team,” he says. NZC’s five-year strategic plan for 2024/25-2028/29 outlines a goal that the White Ferns will consistently reach the semi-finals of the events they take part in; another goal is that the depth of talent pool of international cricketers grows year on year. It’s a challenge that both Green and Sawyer are relishing. “We’ve got a really strong U19 two-year cycle related to the World Cup and in domestic cricket we’ve got the A programme and the North v South series, which are really critical for players to move through the pathway. I think now players are genuinely starting to see a pathway and strive to perform strongly at domestic cricket and work their way up,” Green says. Although there are a growing number of female leaders in New Zealand Cricket, it’s unclear how quickly a woman will be in a position to succeed Sawyer, or the head coaches that follow him. When Craig McMillan was appointed as Sawyer’s assistant coach earlier this year, no females applied for the job. “I’m a firm believer that it’s always the best coach for the job, regardless of gender,” says Green, but I’m a big advocate and supporter of trying to get more females coaches into our systems and across our programmes. “For me, I think, yes, we get criticism for not appointing more female coaches to roles, but equally the context I have is that is saddens me that no females apply for these roles and I guess that’s the question I’ve been asking internally, how do we create opportunities for females coaches where they feel they can reach out and ask the question. “We’ve got some great female leaders in the game – we’ve just appointed Sarah Tsukigawa as national women’s selector – but for me, we’ve got to start somewhere and I’m really proud of the work that’s done within our communities,” she says. “We’re becoming a lot more inclusive and open in terms of women feeling comfortable enough to be in our system and it’s how we keep growing that level of comfort for female coaches. I guess the final hurdle is making sure those female coaches are ready to take on a role, but I’m encouraged by what I’m seeing,” she says. Now that Sawyer has been reappointed, his first task with his reunited White Ferns squad is the highly anticipated Rose Bowl series against Australia, made up of a three-match ODI series at Wellington’s Basin Reserve, on December 19, 21 and 23. The first of those matches will be free for spectators to attend and the T20 World Cup trophy will be on display. The squad will be named later this week. “It’s now onto ODI cricket and how we can develop that. We’ve got the world’s toughest assignment with the world’s best ODI team coming up. Once again, it’s going to be hard and we’ll be trying to win every single game, but we also know that we’re getting ready for that World Cup, playing that way.”Israel has agreed to a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon that will take effect at 4 a.m. Wednesday. Moments after U.S. President Joe Biden announced the ceasefire deal , which Israel's Cabinet approved late Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike slammed into the Lebanese capital. Residents of Beirut and its southern suburbs have endured the most intense day of Israeli strikes since the war began nearly 14 months ago, as Israel signaled it aims to keep pummeling Hezbollah before the ceasefire is set to take hold. At least 24 people have killed by Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Tuesday, according to local authorities. Hezbollah also fired rockets into Israel on Tuesday, triggering air raid sirens across the country’s north. An Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire would mark the first major step toward ending the regionwide unrest triggered by Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. But it does not address the devastating war in Gaza. Hezbollah began attacking Israel a day after Hamas’ attack. The fighting in Lebanon escalated into all-out war in September with massive Israeli airstrikes across the country and an Israeli ground invasion of the south. In Gaza, more than 44,000 people have been killed and more than 104,000 wounded in the nearly 14-month war between Israel and Hamas, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Here's the Latest: BEIRUT -- Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed the U.S.-brokered ceasefire proposal between Israel and Hezbollah, describing it as a crucial step toward stability, the return of displaced people to their homes and regional calm. Mikati made these comments in a statement issued just after U.S. President Joe announced the truce deal. Mikati said he discussed the ceasefire agreement with Biden by phone earlier Tuesday. The prime minister reaffirmed Lebanon’s commitment to implementing U.N. resolution 1701, strengthening the Lebanese army’s presence in the south, and cooperating with the U.N. peacekeeping force. He also called on Israel to fully comply with the ceasefire and withdraw from southern Lebanon in accordance the U.N. resolution. JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security Cabinet has approved a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah, clearing the way for the truce to take effect. Netanyahu’s office said the plan was approved by a 10-1 margin. The late-night vote came shortly before President Joe Biden was expected to announced details of the deal in Washington. Earlier, Netanyahu defended the ceasefire, saying Israel has inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollah and could now focus its efforts on Hamas militants in Gaza and his top security concern, Iran. Netanyahu vowed to strike Hezbollah hard if it violates the expected deal. WASHINGTON — Rep. Mike Waltz, President-elect Donald Trump’s designate to be national security adviser, credited Trump’s victory with helping bring the parties together toward a ceasefire in Lebanon. “Everyone is coming to the table because of President Trump,” he said in a post on X on Tuesday. “His resounding victory sent a clear message to the rest of the world that chaos won’t be tolerated. I’m glad to see concrete steps towards deescalation in the Middle East.” He added: “But let’s be clear: The Iran Regime is the root cause of the chaos & terror that has been unleashed across the region. We will not tolerate the status quo of their support for terrorism.” BEIRUT — Israeli jets targeted a building in a bustling commercial area of Beirut for the first time since the start of the 13-month war between Hezbollah and Israel. The strike on Hamra is around 400 meters (yards) from the country’s central bank. A separate strike hit the Mar Elias neighborhood in the country’s capital Tuesday. There was no immediate word on casualties from either strike, part of the biggest wave of attacks on the capital since the war started. Residents in central Beirut were seen fleeing after the Israeli army issued evacuation warnings for four targets in the city. Meanwhile, the Israeli army carried out airstrikes on at least 30 targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs Tuesday, including two strikes in the Jnah neighborhood near the Kuwaiti Embassy. Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported that 13 people were injured in the strikes on the southern suburbs. BEIRUT — Hezbollah has said it accepts the ceasefire proposal with Israel, but a senior official with the group said Tuesday that it had not seen the agreement in its final form. “After reviewing the agreement signed by the enemy government, we will see if there is a match between what we stated and what was agreed upon by the Lebanese officials,” Mahmoud Qamati, deputy chair of Hezbollah’s political council, told the Al Jazeera news network. “We want an end to the aggression, of course, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of the state.” of Lebanon, he said. “Any violation of sovereignty is refused.” Among the issues that may remain is an Israeli demand to reserve the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations under the emerging deal. The deal seeks to push Hezbollah and Israeli troops out of southern Lebanon. JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that he would recommend his Cabinet adopt a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, as Israeli warplanes struck across Lebanon, killing at least 23 people. The Israeli military also issued a flurry of evacuation warnings — a sign it was aiming to inflict punishment on Hezbollah down to the final moments before any ceasefire takes hold. For the first time in the conflict, Israeli ground troops reached parts of Lebanon’s Litani River, a focal point of the emerging deal. In a televised statement, Netanyahu said he would present the ceasefire to Cabinet ministers later on Tuesday, setting the stage for an end to nearly 14 months of fighting. Netanyahu said the vote was expected later Tuesday. It was not immediately clear when the ceasefire would go into effect, and the exact terms of the deal were not released. The deal does not affect Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which shows no signs of ending. BEIRUT — Lebanon’s state media said Israeli strikes on Tuesday killed at least 10 people in Baalbek province the country’s east. At least three people were killed in the southern city of Tyre when Israel bombed a Palestinian refugee camp, said Mohammed Bikai, a representative of the Fatah group in the area. He said several more people were missing and at least three children were among the wounded. He said the sites struck inside the camp were “completely civilian places” and included a kitchen that was being used to cook food for displaced people. JERUSALEM — Dozens of Israeli protesters took to a major highway in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening to call for the return of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, as the country awaited news of a potential ceasefire in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah. Protesters chanted “We are all hostages,” and “Deal now!” waving signs with faces of some of the roughly 100 hostages believed to be still held in Gaza, at least a third of whom are thought to be dead. Most of the other hostages Hamas captured in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack were released during a ceasefire last year. The prospect of a ceasefire deal in Lebanon has raised desperation among the relatives of captives still held in Gaza, who once hoped that the release of hostages from Gaza would be included. Instead of a comprehensive deal, the ceasefire on the table is instead narrowly confined to Lebanon. Dozens of Israelis were also demonstrating against the expected cease-fire, gathering outside Israel’s military headquarters in central Tel Aviv. One of the protesters, Yair Ansbacher, says the deal is merely a return to the failed 2006 U.N. resolution that was meant to uproot Hezbollah from the area. “Of course that didn’t happen,” he says. “This agreement is not worth the paper it is written on.” FIUGGI, Italy — Foreign ministers from the world’s industrialized countries said Tuesday they strongly supported an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah and insisted that Israel comply with international law in its ongoing military operations in the region. At the end of their two-day summit, the ministers didn’t refer directly to the International Criminal Court and its recent arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister over crimes against humanity . Italy had put the ICC warrants on the official meeting agenda, even though the G7 was split on the issue. The U.S., Israel’s closest ally, isn’t a signatory to the court and has called the warrants “outrageous.” However, the EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell said all the other G7 countries were signatories and therefore obliged to respect the warrants. In the end, the final statement adopted by the ministers said Israel, in exercising its right to defend itself, “must fully comply with its obligations under international law in all circumstances, including international humanitarian law.” And it said all G7 members — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States – “reiterate our commitment to international humanitarian law and will comply with our respective obligations.” It stressed that “there can be no equivalence between the terrorist group Hamas and the State of Israel.” The ICC warrants say there's reason to believe Netanyahu used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid and intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza — charges Israeli officials deny. BEIRUT — An Israeli strike on Tuesday levelled a residential building in the central Beirut district of Basta — the second time in recent days warplanes have hit the crowded area near the city’s downtown. At least seven people were killed and 37 wounded in Beirut, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. It was not immediately clear if anyone in particular was targeted, though Israel says its airstrikes target Hezbollah officials and assets. The Israeli military spokesman issued a flurry of evacuation warnings for many areas, including areas in Beirut that have not been targeted throughout the war, like the capital’s commercial Hamra district, where many people displaced by the war have been staying. The warnings, coupled with fear that Israel was ratcheting up attacks in Lebanon during the final hours before a ceasefire is reached, sparked panic and sent residents fleeing in their cars to safer areas. In areas close to Hamra, families including women and children were seen running away toward the Mediterranean Sea’s beaches carrying their belongings. Traffic was completely gridlocked as people tried to get away, honking their car horns as Israeli drones buzzed loudly overhead. The Israeli military also issued warnings for 20 more buildings in Beirut’s suburbs to evacuate before they too were struck — a sign it was aiming to inflict punishment on Hezbollah in the final moments before any ceasefire takes hold. TEL AVIV, Israel — The independent civilian commission of inquiry into the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel has found Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly responsible for the failures leading up to the attack, alongside former defense ministers, the army chief and the heads of the security services. The civil commission presented its findings today after a four-month probe in which it heard some 120 witnesses. It was set up by relatives of victims of the Hamas attack, in response to the absence of any state probe. The commission determined that the Israeli government, its army and security services “failed in their primary mission of protecting the citizens of Israel.” It said Netanyahu was responsible for ignoring “repeated warnings” ahead of Oct. 7, 2023 for what it described as his appeasing approach over the years toward Hamas, and for “undermining all decision-making centers, including the cabinet and the National Security Council, in a way that prevented any serious discussion” on security issues. The commission further determined that the military and defense leaders bear blame for ignoring warnings from within the army, and for reducing the army’s presence along the Gaza border while relying excessively on technological means. On the day of the Hamas attack, the report says, the army’s response was both slow and lacking. The civil commission called for the immediate establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the Oct. 7 attack. Netanyahu has opposed launching a state commission of inquiry, arguing that such an investigation should begin only once the war is over. JERUSALEM -- The Israeli military says its ground troops have reached parts of Lebanon’s Litani River — a focal point of the emerging ceasefire. In a statement Tuesday, the army said it had reached the Wadi Slouqi area in southern Lebanon and clashed with Hezbollah forces. Under a proposed ceasefire, Hezbollah would be required to move its forces north of the Litani, which in some places is some 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the Israeli border. The military says the clashes with Hezbollah took place on the eastern end of the Litani, just a few kilometers (miles) from the border. It is one of the deepest places Israeli forces have reached in a nearly two-month ground operation. The military says soldiers destroyed rocket launchers and missiles and engaged in “close-quarters combat” with Hezbollah forces. The announcement came hours before Israel’s security Cabinet is expected to approve a ceasefire that would end nearly 14 months of fighting. BEIRUT — Israeli jets Tuesday struck at least six buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs Tuesday, including one that slammed near the country’s only airport. Large plumes of smoke could be seen around the airport near the Mediterranean coast, which has continued to function despite its location beside the densely populated suburbs where many of Hezbollah’s operations are based. The strikes come hours before Israel’s cabinet was scheduled to meet to discuss a proposal to end the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. The proposal calls for an initial two-month ceasefire during which Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah would end its armed presence along the southern border south of the Litani River. There were no immediate reports of casualties from Tuesday’s airstrikes. FIUGGI, Italy — EU top diplomat Josep Borrell, whose term ends Dec. 1, said he proposed to the G7 and Arab ministers who joined in talks on Monday that the U.N. Security Council take up a resolution specifically demanding humanitarian assistance reach Palestinians in Gaza, saying deliveries have been completely impeded. “The two-state solution will come later. Everything will come later. But we are talking about weeks or days,” for desperate Palestinians, he said. “Hunger has been used as an arm against people who are completely abandoned.” It was a reference to the main accusation levelled by the International Criminal Court in its arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister. Borrell said the signatories to the court, including six of the seven G7 members, are obliged under international law to respect and implement the court’s decisions. Host Italy put the ICC warrants on the G7 agenda at the last minute, but there was no consensus on the wording of how the G7 would respond given the U.S., Israel’s closest ally, has called the warrants “outrageous.” Italy, too, has said it respects the court but expressed concern that the warrants were politically motivated and ill-advised given Netanyahu is necessary for any deal to end the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. “Like it or not, the International Criminal Court is a court as powerful as any national court,” Borrell said. “And if the Europeans don’t support International Criminal Court then there would not be any hope for justice,” he said. Borrell, whose term ends Dec. 1, said he proposed to the G7 and Arab ministers who joined in talks on Monday that the U.N. Security Council take up a resolution specifically demanding humanitarian assistance reach Palestinians in Gaza, saying deliveries have been completely impeded. “The two-state solution will come later. Everything will come later. But we are talking about weeks or days,” for desperate Palestinians, he said. “Hunger has been used as an arm against people who are completely abandoned.” It was a reference to the main accusation levelled by the International Criminal Court in its arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister. Borrell said the signatories to the court, including six of the seven G7 members, are obliged under international law to respect and implement the court’s decisions. Host Italy put the ICC warrants on the G7 agenda at the last minute, but there was no consensus on the wording of how the G7 would respond given the U.S., Israel’s closest ally, has called the warrants “outrageous.” Italy, too, has said it respects the court but expressed concern that the warrants were politically motivated and ill-advised given Netanyahu is necessary for any deal to end the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. “Like it or not, the International Criminal Court is a court as powerful as any national court,” Borrell said. “And if the Europeans don’t support International Criminal Court then there would not be any hope for justice,” he said. (edited)

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