Dixon Looks To Gain On Whitmer At Michigan Governor Debate
Dixon Looks To Gain On Whitmer At Michigan Governor Debate https://digitalalaskanews.com/dixon-looks-to-gain-on-whitmer-at-michigan-governor-debate/
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The candidates for governor of Michigan are having their first debate on Thursday, as Republican challenger Tudor Dixon looks to use the primetime appearance to narrow her gap with Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Dixon is a former commentator for a conservative online program who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. She has never held public office and is still working to introduce herself and her ideas to voters — some of whom may be seeing her in action for the first time at Thursday’s debate.
For months, Whitmer and fellow Democrats have been airing attack ads portraying the Republican as too extreme on issues such as abortion, noting Dixon’s opposition to the procedure even in cases of rape or incest. Those ads have largely gone unanswered as Dixon has struggled to raise money to compete with Whitmer’s multimillion-dollar campaign fund.
But with just weeks to go before the Nov. 8 election, Dixon is expected to fire back at Whitmer during the debate in Grand Rapids. She has described the governor’s views as “radical” on issues such as education, abortion and criminal justice. Dixon also has criticized Whitmer on the campaign trail for her approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, saying lockdowns she imposed hurt the state’s economy.
Whitmer is seeking her second term as governor after serving in leadership in the Michigan Legislature, where in 2013 during a debate over insurance coverage of abortion she publicly shared her story of being raped. She has since said she will “fight like hell” to protect abortion rights, including filing a lawsuit earlier this year to block a 1931 ban from taking effect in the state after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Abortion has been a particularly prominent issue in Michigan this year because voters in November also will decide whether to enshrine the right to the procedure in the state constitution.
Dixon has said she supports abortion only to save the life of the mother, and she has been endorsed by anti-abortion groups, including Right to Life of Michigan.
She has had support from the family of Betsy DeVos, the former Education Secretary under Trump, and a well-known member of the state’s GOP establishment. Her campaign said she was getting help preparing for the debate from another endorsee, former Gov. John Engler.
Dixon emerged from a five-candidate Republican primary after receiving Trump’s endorsement. She said during the primary that she believed the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, whose loss to Joe Biden in Michigan by some 154,000 votes was confirmed through multiple investigations and lawsuits.
The mother of four has criticized Whitmer over education in the state, saying parents should have more rights in regard to what is taught to children.
The two candidates are scheduled to debate again on Oct. 25 at Oakland University in Rochester.
___
Joey Cappelletti is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
___
Burnett reported from Chicago.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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Jan 6 Hearing To Reveal New Evidence As Trump Denies Raping E Jean Carroll Live
Jan 6 Hearing To Reveal New Evidence As Trump Denies Raping E Jean Carroll – Live https://digitalalaskanews.com/jan-6-hearing-to-reveal-new-evidence-as-trump-denies-raping-e-jean-carroll-live/
US representative promises ‘surprising’ new material at Jan 6 hearing
At a hearing today, the January 6 House committee is expected to unveil “surprising” details about the US Capitol attack.
Among the revelations expected are insights from the former president’s secret service detail and new information regarding the actions of longtime Trump associate Roger Stone. The session will be streamed live at 1pm ET, and is likely to be the panel’s last public hearing before the midterm elections.
Meanwhile, a judge has ruled that Donald Trump must give a deposition in a defamation lawsuit lodged by columnist E Jean Carroll, who accuses him of raping her in New York’s Bergdorf Goodman store in 1996.
Mr Trump, who has several times dismissed Ms Carroll’s allegations, issued a furious denying that any encounter ever took place, adding that “she’s not my type”.
“I don’t know this woman, have no idea who she is,” wrote the former president. “She completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, ‘swooned’ her. It is a hoax and a lie.”
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OPINION: Authoritarian Rule Threatens America’s Democracy https://digitalalaskanews.com/opinion-authoritarian-rule-threatens-americas-democracy/
Donald Trump’s praise of Vladimir Putin is just one example of his authoritarian tendencies, writes Corbin.
Corbin is professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think America would be on the verge of changing from a democracy to authoritarian rule. But overwhelming evidence abounds that voters and a political party are purposely changing their behavioral traits.
With three grandchildren – ages 11, 8 and 4 – I truly fear for their freedoms of speech, press, and religion and their rights of petition and assembly.
Freedom House is the oldest American organization (circa 1941) that conducts research on democracy, political freedom and human rights. The not-for-profit organization’s fact-based “Freedom in the World 2022” report assesses 210 countries’ degree of political freedoms and civil liberties. The first paragraph of the report is daunting: “Global freedom faces a dire threat … the enemies of liberal democracy … are accelerating their attacks.”
The United States, Hungary, Nauru, Poland and India are identified as the top five countries in the world with the largest 10-year decline of democracy attributes.
The report notes “elections, even when critically flawed, have long given authoritarian leaders a veneer of legitimacy.” Examples include Russia’s 2021 parliamentary elections (Vladimir Putin vs. Aleksey Navalny; Navalny was sent to prison by Putin), Nicaragua’s 2021 presidential election (Daniel Ortega arrested seven opposition candidates) and the United States’ 2020 presidential election with Republicans fraudulent “stop the steal” claims (100 percent of America’s 3,006 county auditors certified the vote, 64 court cases and Trump-appointed Attorney General Bill Barr confirmed the election results, and there were only 16 charged cases of voting illegally out of 158 million ballots cast).
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The report further states: “Leaders who fear losing power in a democratic system have taken to sowing distrust in elections. The assault on the U.S. Capitol was the culmination of a months-long campaign by outgoing president Donald Trump to cast Joe Biden’s victory as illegitimate and fraudulent.” On Jan. 6, 2021, we witnessed over 2,000 pro-Trump rioter illegally enter the Capitol plus 147 congressional Republicans vote to overturn the election results. That’s authoritarianism in action.
Most authoritarians are narcissistic, demand complete control over their subordinates, always find fault lies with someone else, and love to scare people with disinformation and misinformation. Does anyone come to mind?
Authoritarian leaders like to collaborate and praise one another. Donald Trump repeatedly praised North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, China’s Xi Jinping, Philippine’s Rodrigo Duterte, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Putin.
Authoritarian are often anti-asylum, anti-immigration, anti-LGBTQ, for voter suppression, for book banning and for private school preference, and they invoke discrimination against racial and ethnic minority groups,. Sound familiar?
Other political characteristics of authoritarians include tying themselves to organizations engaged in illicit behavior and refusing to condemn political violence (see: “very fine people” in Charlottesville, Va., and “Proud Boys: stand back and stand by”) and lambasting the media and criticizing the government (e.g., FBI, CIA, IRS, DOJ, etc.).
If the above noted examples don’t wake you up to America’s democracy being in jeopardy, then it’s safe to say A) this is the first time you’ve read about the democracy-authoritarian conundrum, B) you’ve been hoodwinked, deceived, duped and outwitted by autocrats or C) your inductive or deductive reasoning skills to differentiate democracy norms from fascism and authoritarian rule needs fine tuning.
Two succinct quotations about this topic come to mind: 1) “the ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all” (John F. Kennedy) and 2) “The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy” (French political philosopher Montesquieu).
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Social Security COLA 2023 Release Live Online: Estimate Adjustment And Inflation Relief Checks | SSA Updates
Social Security COLA 2023 Release, Live Online: Estimate, Adjustment And Inflation Relief Checks | SSA Updates https://digitalalaskanews.com/social-security-cola-2023-release-live-online-estimate-adjustment-and-inflation-relief-checks-ssa-updates-2/
2023 Social Security COLA: Latest Updates
LATEST NEWS
Will medical costs affect COLA 2023 and how much will Medicare premiums drop?
The cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) reflects the year-on-year price changes recorded in the United States. To ensure that benefits are raised in line with inflation the Social Security Administration must introduce a COLA increase every year, or recipients will be poorer in real terms.
The Consumer Price Index is comprised of eight groups of spending, one of which is medical care. If the cost of healthcare across the country increases significantly over the year, then the following year’s COLA boost will reflect that change.
The medical care CPI index is divided into two main categories: medical care services and medical care commodities.
Read our full coverage for all we know on how the COLA could impact Medicare premiums.
Tomorrow, seniors and other Americans on Social Security are will learn precisely how much their monthly checks will increase – but experts forecast it will be $140 per month, on average, starting in January. For the first time in over a decade, seniors’ Medicare premiums will decrease even as their Social Security checks increase.
SOCIAL SECURITY
How can you check your COLA notice online and when will I see the increase in my Social Security checks?
The Social Security Administration announces annually its cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to benefits so that they keep pace with inflation. With prices rising at a clip not seen in four decades many beneficiaries will be anxious to see what the boost to their monthly checks will be in 2023.
While the agency mails out letters throughout the month of December, but they request not to contact them until January, the first month when beneficiaries will see payments with the higher amount, as the notice could take time to reach you. However, you may not need to wait for the mail to know how much your payments will increase based on the 2023 COLA.
Read our full coverage for more details on when beneficiaries will be informed of their 2023 benefit amounts.
In anticipation of the 2023 Social Security COLA announcement, Democrats are going on the attack.
Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse sent a tweet calling out Republican plans to make cuts to Social Security.
“Republicans have said they want to put Social Security on the chopping block, though they’re awful cagey about admitting it,” said Whitehouse. In the lead up to the mid-terms, Democrats are trying to make the differences between their position and that of Republicans on Social Security very clear to voters. Democratic leaders know that Social Security is popular and that they can nail Republicans by calling out their attempts to continue the privatization of retirement, which comes at great risk to workers. Consider that during the 2008 Financial Crisis, millions of workers saw their 401(k) and pension devastated by criminal bets taken by Wall Street bankers.
Latest News
Social Security COLA 2023: how much is the increase on benefits?
The Social Secuirty Administration (SSA) is likely to announce the 2023 Cost-of-living adjustment on Thursday, 13 October.
Last year, an increase of 5.9 percent was applied to benefits – one of the largest on record. This year, that number could be surpassed as inflation has continued to impact markets of key commodity groups, including food, energy, and shelter.
Read more on the possible increase in our full coverage.
Social Security COLA increase, explained
The Social Security COLA is calculated using price data from July, August, and September and comparing the data from the current year to the previous.
This year, inflation has rocked consumer markets, meaning that the 2023 COLA would be one of the largest seen in forty years. The COLA will not only be applied to Social Secutiy benefits but also beneficiaries of Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance.
SOCIAL SECURITY
At what age is Social Security no longer taxed in the US?
The Social Security Administration is expected to announce the 2023 COLA on 13 October, and the boost could be a doozy.
Great news for those that are finding their monthly checks not going as far in the face of rising prices. Bad news for those that will break the income thresholds where a portion of their benefits are liable to taxation.
Read more in our full coverage.
Hello and welcome to AS USA’s live blog on the 2023 Social Security COLA increase for Thursday, 13 October.
The Social Security Adminstration is expected to announce the 2023 Cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for social security benefits, as well as other programs like Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance.
The COLA offered this year could be historic in size after inflation has plagued markets for basic commodities consumed by most households, including food, shelter, utilities, and gasoline.
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Ukraine Says It Will Take Weeks To Fully Restore Power After Attacks
Ukraine Says It Will Take Weeks To Fully Restore Power After Attacks https://digitalalaskanews.com/ukraine-says-it-will-take-weeks-to-fully-restore-power-after-attacks/
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Crews working on Tuesday to repair an electrical system in Kyiv damaged by the missile strikes.Credit…Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times
KYIV, Ukraine — Rolling blackouts are plaguing towns and cities across Ukraine after widespread Russian attacks this week that officials say damaged about 30 percent of the country’s electrical infrastructure.
While experts say the country had prepared for such strikes, officials have urged people to conserve energy, and it could be weeks before repairs to the system are finished. Many in the country — a supplier of electricity to Western Europe — believe that more must be done to secure the supply heading into winter.
Assaults on the country’s energy system continued on Wednesday, with reports of strikes on power infrastructure in Kamianske, an industrial city on the Dnipro River in eastern Ukraine.
“There is a serious fire and destruction; rescuers are taming the flames,” Valentyn Reznichenko, the head of the regional military administration, wrote in a statement on Telegram. “Then the power engineers will try to restore the equipment.”
The recent attacks damaged energy facilities in 12 regions and in the capital, Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address on Wednesday. He added that “the technical capability of electricity supply” had been fully restored in all but four regions, and thanked local officials and citizens for reducing energy consumption.
The mass strikes are the first time since the start of the war that Russian forces have targeted the energy infrastructure so broadly, officials say. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia described the attacks as retaliation for an explosion that brought down part of a bridge between Russia and Crimea and that he blamed on Ukraine.
Ukraine has been preparing as much as possible for a scenario in which energy infrastructure was targeted, by ensuring that extra equipment and other contingency plans are in place, officials say.
Power stations can operate independently, so the country can be “divided into islands of energy supply,” even when connections between them are damaged, noted Ivan Plachkov, a former energy minister for Ukraine.
The system has some resilience and some reserve, and it will be repaired, said Nataliya Katser-Buchkovska, an expert on the country’s energy system who is a former member of Ukraine’s Parliament and founder of the Ukrainian Sustainable Fund. “But we think it will take a few weeks.”
The government said it would halt energy exports after Monday’s strikes, disrupting a source of income that has been a boost to Ukraine’s economy during months of war.
Speaking to the boards of governors of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on Wednesday, Mr. Zelensky asked for $57 billion to address the gloomy financial situation in Ukraine, including $2 billion allotted toward expanding exports to Europe and restoring energy infrastructure.
During the Soviet era in the 1970s and early ’80s, the country became a center of electrical generation. Numerous nuclear plants and coal plants were created, hydropower systems were developed and transmission lines were built to sell power to Western Europe.
In a typical year, before the pandemic shifted consumption habits, the country was producing nearly twice as much energy as was needed for domestic consumption, experts said, with much of that being sold to Europe.
Ukraine’s renewable energy sources have also been affected by the war. Twelve percent of its overall power supply used to come from renewables, like solar and wind power, Ms. Katser-Buchkovska said. But since the war began, and parts of the south and east have been besieged, that amount has been cut in half.
She said she hoped to see more resilient decentralized regeneration, allowing for more homes to have access to electricity even if their local power plant is knocked out, become part of those plans, as well as the use of more sustainable energy sources, to make the country less vulnerable to attacks.
“We need to rebuild not in an old-fashioned style, but to make it more efficient, more decentralized and sustainable,” she said. “Energy has always been used as a weapon by the Russian Federation, so when we are restoring and rebuilding we need to take that into account.”
Ben Shpigel contributed reporting.
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An apartment building damaged by a Russian military strike in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, early Thursday.Credit…Viktoriia Lakezina/Reuters
At least seven people were missing in the rubble after missiles struck an apartment building in the city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine early Thursday, the latest in the broad assault on civilian targets that Russian forces have unleashed on cities across Ukraine this week.
Eight missiles landed overnight in the city, which is near the Black Sea coast, the mayor, Vitaly Kim, wrote on Telegram. An 11-year-old boy was rescued after spending six hours buried in the crumbled five-story building, according to the mayor.
This week’s attacks, which have been some of the most widespread and indiscriminate since the start of the war, have shattered a sense of normalcy for Ukrainians away from the front lines and severely damaged electrical infrastructure in various parts of the country. Recent attacks have involved widespread use of self-destructing drones supplied by Iran.
Early Thursday, the Kyiv region was hit with drone attacks, a regional military official said as air raid sirens went off across a swath of central and western Ukraine.
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NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, right, and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III at a news conference at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.Credit…Stephanie Lecocq/EPA, via Shutterstock
BRUSSELS — NATO’s secretary general vowed on Thursday that Kyiv’s allies would “stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes” and that NATO would provide “more air defense systems” to allow Ukraine to continue countering Russian cruise missiles and drones.
The official, Jens Stoltenberg, made the comments in brief remarks with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III at a press event at the start of a daylong meeting of defense ministers from member states aimed at reaffirming support for Ukraine.
The ministerial meeting follows discussions held Wednesday during the sixth meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a grouping of about 50 nations that are supporting Kyiv with military and humanitarian aid.
“We need to stand up for a rules-based international order, for our core values, and again, the U.S. mission in NATO and the international community is essential,” Mr. Stoltenberg said.
Mr. Austin reiterated the United States’ commitment to NATO’s mutual-defense provision under Article 5 of the alliance’s charter, and reaffirmed support for expanding the alliance by adding Finland and Sweden, which applied for membership this year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Outside a building destroyed in a Russian attack using an Iranian-made drone in Bila Tserkva, southwest of Kyiv, last week.Credit…Gleb Garanich/Reuters
KYIV, Ukraine — The Kyiv region of Ukraine was hit by an airstrike early Thursday that is believed to have been delivered by so-called kamikaze drones, a regional official said, adding to concerns about Russia’s increasing use of the self-destructing weapons.
There were no injuries, according to the region’s governor, Oleksiy Kuleba, who did not specify the locations that were hit, citing security concerns. But the use of such weapons has left many people on edge in an area of Ukraine that until this week had largely been spared since the early months of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February.
Mr. Kuleba said on the Telegram social media app that three “kamikaze,” or self-destructing, drones had been used in the attack. Rescuers were working at the scene, he added, urging people to remain in shelters until an alert was lifted, which came later on Thursday morning.
Russia has been deploying dozens of Iranian-made drones as part of a scaled-up offensive on civilian and infrastructure targets far from the front lines. Ukraine’s military said this week that its air defenses were managing to shoot down a significant number, but not all, of the drones.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said in an intelligence assessment on Wednesday that the drones were not fulfilling Russia’s war aims, because they are “slow” and “easy to target.” But they are still causing destruction and sowing fear. Last week, drones landed in Bila Tserkva, a town about 50 miles south of Kyiv, hitting civilian infrastructure.
Ukraine’s Center of National Resistance, a government website that offers guidance on how to help the war effort, said this week that Russia had brought Iranian instructors into occupied areas of Ukraine to instruct Moscow’s forces in the use of the drones. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group, said the instructors were probably members or affiliates of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the primary operator of Iran’s drone inventory.
In the region around Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, air-raid sirens rang out repeatedly on Tuesday and Wednesday, signaling that a missile or drone with the capacity to hit the area was in the air. The capital had not been hit by a strike since Monday, but the sudden targeting of the city and other sites that day left many people scrambling for shelters in a way that they had not done in months.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior official in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, said that critical infrastructure facilities had been hit by the drones on Thursday. The strikes have wrought significant damage on Ukraine’s electrical system as a number of vital power connections have been hit.
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Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Aust...
Tropical Storm Karl Expected To Turn Southeast https://digitalalaskanews.com/tropical-storm-karl-expected-to-turn-southeast/
OVER 70’S, LOW 80’S. — UPPER 70’S, LOW 80’S. THIS IS A FEATURE IN THE TROPICS IS TRYING TO MOVE NORTH BUT IT WILL BE FORCED SOUTHWARD WITH THE FRONT THAT WILL WORK IN TOMORROW. THE NEXT NAMED STORM IF WE GET ONE I
Tropical Storm Karl expected to turn southeast
Tropical Storm Karl was still “nearly stationary” Thursday morning but was expected to make a shift soon. The storm was 250 miles north-northeast of Veracruz, Mexico, and 290 miles north of Coatzacoalcos, Mexico. Karl had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph and was stationary. “A slow motion toward the southeast or south-southeast should begin later today, with Karl then expected to turn southward or south-southwestward over the Bay of Campeche on Friday. On the forecast track, the center of Karl should reach the coasts of Tabasco or Veracruz states in Mexico late Friday night or early Saturday,” the National Hurricane Center said. “Little change in strength is expected today, but Karl should gradually lose some strength on Friday while it approaches the Bay of Campeche coast of Mexico.”Karl is not expected to pose a threat to Florida.Karl is the 11th named storm of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season.SUMMARY OF WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN EFFECT:A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for…* Tuxpan to FronteraA Tropical Storm Watch means that tropical storm conditions are possible within the watch area, generally within 48 hours.KNOW WHAT TO DO WHEN A HURRICANE WATCH IS ISSUEDStay tuned to WESH 2 News, WESH.COM, or NOAA Weather Radio for storm updates.Prepare to bring inside any lawn furniture, outdoor decorations or ornaments, trash cans, hanging plants, and anything else that can be picked up by the wind.Understand hurricane forecast models and cones.Prepare to cover all windows of your home. If shutters have not been installed, use precut plywood.Check batteries and stock up on canned food, first-aid supplies, drinking water, and medications.The WESH 2 First Warning Weather Team recommends you have these items ready before the storm strikes.Bottled water: One gallon of water per person per dayCanned food and soup, such as beans and chiliCan opener for the cans without the easy-open lidsAssemble a first-aid kitTwo weeks’ worth of prescription medicationsBaby/children’s needs, such as formula and diapersFlashlight and batteriesBattery-operated weather radioWHAT TO DO WHEN A HURRICANE WARNING IS ISSUEDListen to the advice of local officials. If you are advised to evacuate, leave.Complete preparation activities.If you are not advised to evacuate, stay indoors, away from windows.Be alert for tornadoes. Tornadoes can happen during a hurricane and after it passes over. Remain indoors, in the center of your home, in a closet or bathroom without windows.HOW YOUR SMARTPHONE CAN HELP DURING A HURRICANEA smartphone can be your best friend in a hurricane — with the right websites and apps, you can turn it into a powerful tool for guiding you through a storm’s approach, arrival and aftermath.Download the WESH 2 News app for iOS | AndroidEnable emergency alerts — if you have an iPhone, select settings, then go into notifications. From there, look for government alerts and enable emergency alerts.If you have an Android phone, from the home page of the app, scroll to the right along the bottom and click on “settings.” On the settings menu, click on “severe weather alerts.” From the menu, select from the most severe, moderate-severe, or all alerts.PET AND ANIMAL SAFETYYour pet should be a part of your family plan. If you must evacuate, the most important thing you can do to protect your pets is to evacuate them too. Leaving pets behind, even if you try to create a safe space for them, could result in injury or death.Contact hotels and motels outside of your immediate area to see if they take pets.Ask friends, relatives and others outside of the affected area whether they could shelter your animal.
ORLANDO, Fla. —
Tropical Storm Karl was still “nearly stationary” Thursday morning but was expected to make a shift soon.
The storm was 250 miles north-northeast of Veracruz, Mexico, and 290 miles north of Coatzacoalcos, Mexico. Karl had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph and was stationary.
“A slow motion toward the southeast or south-southeast should begin later today, with Karl then expected to turn southward or south-southwestward over the Bay of Campeche on Friday. On the forecast track, the center of Karl should reach the coasts of Tabasco or Veracruz states in Mexico late Friday night or early Saturday,” the National Hurricane Center said. “Little change in strength is expected today, but Karl should gradually lose some strength on Friday while it approaches the Bay of Campeche coast of Mexico.”
Karl is not expected to pose a threat to Florida.
Karl is the 11th named storm of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season.
SUMMARY OF WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN EFFECT:
A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for…
* Tuxpan to Frontera
A Tropical Storm Watch means that tropical storm conditions are possible within the watch area, generally within 48 hours.
KNOW WHAT TO DO WHEN A HURRICANE WATCH IS ISSUED
Stay tuned to WESH 2 News, WESH.COM, or NOAA Weather Radio for storm updates.
Prepare to bring inside any lawn furniture, outdoor decorations or ornaments, trash cans, hanging plants, and anything else that can be picked up by the wind.
Understand hurricane forecast models and cones.
Prepare to cover all windows of your home. If shutters have not been installed, use precut plywood.
Check batteries and stock up on canned food, first-aid supplies, drinking water, and medications.
The WESH 2 First Warning Weather Team recommends you have these items ready before the storm strikes.
Bottled water: One gallon of water per person per day
Canned food and soup, such as beans and chili
Can opener for the cans without the easy-open lids
Assemble a first-aid kit
Two weeks’ worth of prescription medications
Baby/children’s needs, such as formula and diapers
Flashlight and batteries
Battery-operated weather radio
WHAT TO DO WHEN A HURRICANE WARNING IS ISSUED
Listen to the advice of local officials. If you are advised to evacuate, leave.
Complete preparation activities.
If you are not advised to evacuate, stay indoors, away from windows.
Be alert for tornadoes. Tornadoes can happen during a hurricane and after it passes over. Remain indoors, in the center of your home, in a closet or bathroom without windows.
HOW YOUR SMARTPHONE CAN HELP DURING A HURRICANE
A smartphone can be your best friend in a hurricane — with the right websites and apps, you can turn it into a powerful tool for guiding you through a storm’s approach, arrival and aftermath.
Download the WESH 2 News app for iOS | Android
Enable emergency alerts — if you have an iPhone, select settings, then go into notifications. From there, look for government alerts and enable emergency alerts.
If you have an Android phone, from the home page of the app, scroll to the right along the bottom and click on “settings.” On the settings menu, click on “severe weather alerts.” From the menu, select from the most severe, moderate-severe, or all alerts.
PET AND ANIMAL SAFETY
Your pet should be a part of your family plan. If you must evacuate, the most important thing you can do to protect your pets is to evacuate them too. Leaving pets behind, even if you try to create a safe space for them, could result in injury or death.
Contact hotels and motels outside of your immediate area to see if they take pets.
Ask friends, relatives and others outside of the affected area whether they could shelter your animal.
Read More Here
Sykes Vs. Gesiotto Gilbert: Who Will Speak For Ohio
Sykes Vs. Gesiotto Gilbert: Who Will Speak For Ohio https://digitalalaskanews.com/sykes-vs-gesiotto-gilbert-who-will-speak-for-ohio/
The candidates disagree on everything from abortion to who won the 2020 presidential election.
The two women vying for Ohio’s reconfigured 13th U.S. Congressional District are both millennials who grew up in Northeast Ohio – Emilia Sykes, a Democrat, in Akron and Madison Gesiotto Gilbert, a Republican, in Massillon.
Both dreamed of becoming professional athletes – Sykes a dancer and Gesioto Gilbert a figure skater. Both graduated from law school. And both often wear crosses around their necks, symbolizing their Christian faith.
Yet Sykes, 36, and Gesiotto Gilbert, 30, have strikingly different world views about everything from abortion and labor unions to climate change and who won the last presidential election.
Some pundits have suggested the race for the 13th – which includes all of Summit County and the northern half of Stark County – is a localized repeat of Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, with a moderate Democrat taking on a Make America Great Again Republican.
National money has followed, helping to fund attack ads on both candidates.
Whoever wins will give Akronites their first unified voice in the U.S. House of Representatives in about 50 years.
Until 2022, congressional district maps carved Akron into pieces. That diluted the city’s political power and often meant Akron was represented by people with little connection to the community.
This year’s map leaves Akron and all of Summit County whole, in a district that stretches along the Interstate 77 corridor from Richfield to Canton and includes everything from cities to farmland, including a tiny corner of southwest Portage County.
Just over half of the voters who live in the district – 51% – are Democrats, and 47% are Republican.
Many national political analysts, including the Cook Report, have said the race is a toss-up. But one outlier is FiveThirtyEight, which in early October forecast that Gesiotto Gilbert had an 85% chance of winning.
Sykes is a familiar political name in Ohio, particularly in Akron.
Some joke that Emilia Sykes was born into politics because her mother, Barbara Sykes was pregnant with her while serving on Akron City Council.
Barbara or Emilia’s father, Vernon Sykes, also held the same Ohio House district seat from 1983 until 2013, when term limits forced out Vernon Sykes.
That year, Emilia Sykes – who said she always wanted to follow her parents’ path into public service – ran to replace him and won. She’s since been elected three more times to the Ohio House of Representatives, where most recently she served as minority leader until stepping down in December 2021 to run for the U.S. House.
“Every time I was elected, I made sure I provided my community with top-level service and accessibility and leadership they could be proud of,” Emilia Sykes said during a recent interview with the Akron Beacon Journal.
That experience, she said, has taught her the ins and outs of how government works, so that when constituents come to her having trouble with rent, or day care or health care, she knows how to get them help.
“I know I have connections and an understanding of the process that my opponent doesn’t,” she said. “I won’t have to spend the first year-and-a-half figuring out the job.”
It is true that Gesioto Gilbert has never run for any public office before.
But she’s not new to politics.
She’s worked as a Trump surrogate, a conservative columnist for “The Washington Times,” and as a television pundit, primarily on conservative media defending Trump, whom she first met on the beauty pageant circuit after being crowned Miss Ohio.
Gesiotto Gilbert appears to have been off the campaign trail since mid-September when she gave birth to her first child, Marcus Gilbert Jr.
A campaign official told the Beacon Journal she was too busy to be interviewed by phone but arranged to have Gesiotto Gilbert answer questions in writing via email.
Gesioto Gilbert views her newcomer status as a plus.
“Voters aren’t looking to elect more career politicians like my opponent,” she wrote.
The 13th District wasn’t Gesiotto’s first choice to run in this election cycle.
Last year, she filed paperwork to challenge Democrat Marcy Kaptur for the 9th Congressional District, which stretches from Erie County, along Lake Erie, to Williams County on the northwestern corner of Ohio, bordering both Indiana and Michigan.
At the time, Gesiotto Gilbert provided a Sandusky address.
She said she jumped into the race because of “the lack of leadership of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat-led majorities in the House and Senate.”
Gesiotto Gilbert pivoted, however, to challenge Sykes after the extraordinary statewide redistricting battle that reconfigured the 13th.
Gesiotto Gilbert, who now lives in North Canton, said she was “excited about running in the district where I grew up and where my family lives today.”
Both she and Sykes have zeroed in on the cost of living and inflation as the top issues of voters in the 13th.
But whoever wins the seat will also have a hand in determining the future of American democracy.
The Washington Post this month reported that nearly two-thirds of GOP nominations for state and federal offices with authority over elections deny the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s 2020 win of the presidency.
If those candidates held power in 2020, they would have had the power to overturn the vote, and reinstall Trump as president even though there is no evidence he won the election, the newspaper reported.
The report identified Gesiotto Gilbert as one of 299 Republican election deniers running for office in November, including 173 who are expected to win. The Sykes/Gesiotto Gilbert race was too close to call, the newspaper said.
When the Beacon Journal asked Gesiotto Gilbert whether it was true or false that Trump lost the election and why, she didn’t answer.
Instead, she wrote a paragraph slamming Biden and his policies.
When asked if the country fully understands what led to the Jan. 6 uprising aimed at overturning the election of Biden, Gesiotto Gilbert said she condemns all political violence.
“There are multiple local and federal law enforcement investigations that are still ongoing today,” she wrote. “These criminal investigations should continue until their work is properly done.”
Here’s what Sykes and Gisotto Gilbert said on some other issues:
The economy
Sykes:
In the short term, she said she would look at the tax structure, aiming to bring a middle class tax cut, expand the earned income tax credit and reinstate the child tax credit that she said helped cut child poverty in half during the pandemic.
In the long term, she reflected on Akron’s history of being the rubber capital of the world before production moved around the world, taking opportunity with it.
“What we can do and should do is revitalize manufacturing,” she said, adding she’d support government policies that would rebuild supply chains and fairer trade policies.
Gesiotto Gilbert:
The first thing Gesiotto Gilbert said she would do is rein in “reckless, unsustainable spending (that) has contributed to the historic inflation and economic recession we are currently experiencing.”
Second, she said she would lower taxes for Ohio small businesses, working families and manufacturers, repeating a Republican allegation that Biden and Democrats broke a promise not to raise taxes on individuals and families making less than $100,000.
Fact checkers have said the Inflation Reduction Act raises corporate tax, not individual taxes, though businesses may pass on some of their cost to workers, about 20%, through lower wages.
Finally, Gesiotto Gilbert said she would “unleash American energy production” to reduce gasoline prices, specifically criticizing the demise of the Keystone pipeline under the Biden administration.
The Associated Press has reported the pipeline would have contributed less than 1% of the world supply of oil, which would have a negligible impact on prices.
Labor unions
Sykes:
Labor unions created the middle class in Northeast Ohio and throughout the country, Sykes said.
“People in this community have been able to thrive because of worker protections and collective bargaining and safer conditions,” she said.
Union support, she said, is at an all-time high and Gesiotto “is out of touch with the community” on this issue.
In August, a Gallup poll reported that 71% of Americans now approve of labor unions, a number that increased during the pandemic. That’s the highest support for unions since Gallup began polling on this issue in the 1960s.
Gesiotto Gilbert:
Historically, Gesiotto Gilbert said, unions played an important role in Ohio, particularly in manufacturing.
“However, unions are not for everyone and some workers, such as younger and part-time workers, may not see the benefits of joining a union and do not support compulsory union membership and dues,” she said, adding that it’s possible to be pro-worker and pro-free markets at the same time.
Abortion
Sykes:
Sykes considers abortion part of women’s overall health care and has said the government should not have a say in what women do with their own bodies.
Moreover, she points to an Ohio abortion law – which a judge has put a temporary hold on – that forced a pregnant 10-year-old girl to go outside of the state to seek an abortion in neighboring Indiana.
Cases like that are not uncommon, she said, noting that 538 Ohio girls ages 17 and younger sought abortions last year.
“Those numbers are stark, and we should all be concerned about it,” she said.
The freedoms of half the population are at stake, she said. “It’s a world that’s really scary.”
If elected, Sykes said she would support federal legislation to guarantee a right to abortion.
Gesiotto Gilbert:
Gesiotto Gilbert said she supports the U.S. Supreme Court rulin...
Google Allows Donald Trumps Truth Social In Play Store
Google Allows Donald Trump’s Truth Social In Play Store https://digitalalaskanews.com/google-allows-donald-trumps-truth-social-in-play-store/
LONDON: TikTok is allegedly profiting from Syrian refugees using the platform to beg for donations, an investigation has found.
The social media app was reported by the BBC to take 70 percent of the proceeds raised by families who livestream on the platform pleading for digital gifts with a cash value.
A BBC crew, that spent five months visiting a refugee camp, spoke to a middleman named Hamid Al-Alwa, who provided phones and helped manage accounts of families who begged.
Al-Alwa confirmed that the value of the gifts they received was “significantly reduced” from the amount actually pledged.
“If we get a lion as a gift, it’s worth $500,” he said, in reference to an animated lion that appears on a livestreamer’s screen when a generous donation is made. “By the time it reaches the money exchange in Al-Dana, it’s only $155.”
According to the investigation, families were “earning” up to $1,000 an hour, but received significantly less.
Al-Alwa, who reportedly sold his livestock to pay for a mobile phone, SIM card, and Wi-Fi connection, added that he was working with agencies in China and the Middle East that were contracted by TikTok to “recruit livestreamers and encourage users to spend more time on the app.”
The agencies, known as guilds, are paid to “help content creators produce more appealing livestreams” and receive a commission according to duration and the gifts received.
The investigation reported that children spent up to 10 hours sitting on the floor of their tent begging for money.
Matt Navarra, a social media expert and analyst, said: “Livestreams inevitably pull people in for a longer duration. The longer that they spend on the platform, the more revenue they generate for the business, the more information they glean from its users in terms of how the algorithm works.
“In the video, it’s obviously prolonging the pain for somebody that already is in a desperate situation.”
More than 30 accounts using children for begging were reported to TikTok. The company removed the videos but said that “no violation” had taken place.
“We are deeply concerned by the information and allegations brought to us by the BBC, and have taken prompt and rigorous action,” the firm added.
“This type of content is not allowed on our platform, and we are further strengthening our global policies around exploitative begging.”
TikTok, the world’s fastest-growing social media app, has made more than $6.2 billion in gross revenue from in-app spending since its launch in 2017, according to analytics company Sensor Tower.
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Where The Jan. 6 Investigation Heads Next https://digitalalaskanews.com/where-the-jan-6-investigation-heads-next/
With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross
Since the very first hearing of the House Jan. 6 committee, the panel has vowed to do three things:(1) correct the historical record of the aftermath of the 2020 election; (2) present the case that former President DONALD TRUMP was at the center of a scheme to overturn the results of a free and fair election; and (3) outline an ongoing attack on American democracy.
This afternoon, they’re set to tie all three together in what is expected to be the committee’s final televised hearing.
The hearing itself will “feature evidence that Trump’s allies were pushing him to declare victory on Election Day 2020 even before the votes were counted, and that Trump was warned of the unfolding violence at the Capitol before he tweeted an inflammatory attack on then-Vice President MIKE PENCE,” as our Nicholas Wu and Kyle Cheney write in their preview this morning.
But of perhaps equal importance is the hearing’s place in the broader arc of post-insurrection Washington.
If polls are correct, it’s likely that Republicans will flip the House in November — and if so, they are almost certain to dismantle the committee come January. That means the panel has less than three months to finish up its investigation, write and release its final report (likely in December) and make any legislative recommendations.
As such, today’s session marks a transitionto a new stage in the quest for accountability for the insurrection — one where the work will be confined almost entirely to the legal system. The hearing will function “as a segue of sorts to the criminal case that federal prosecutors are piecing together,” as Nick and Kyle write, “bolstered by the recent issuance of dozens of grand jury subpoenas and court-authorized searches of some of Trump’s top allies.”
What’s new about today’s hearing …
Everyone gets mic time. In a change from past hearings, every member of the committee will get a chance to speak. (The hearing is scheduled to last 2.5 hours.)
No live panelists. They’ve typically provided the most memorable (and newsiest) moments.
New footage of longtime Trump adviser ROGER STONE. NYT’s Luke Broadwater reports that video obtained from a Danish documentary film crew “shows Mr. Stone using bellicose language, endorsing violence and laying out plans to create and exploit uncertainty about the election results to help Mr. Trump cling to power.”
New evidence from the Secret Service. WaPo’s Carol Leonnig and Jacqueline Alemany report that the committee plans to share new video and emails from the Secret Service “that appear to corroborate parts of the most startling inside accounts of that day. … One email the committee has obtained highlights the level of alarm inside Secret Service headquarters on Jan. 6 about the possibility that Trump would get his wish to head to the Capitol — and join a melee in progress.”
What is likely to be left out …
Despite the new evidence, plenty of tantalizing questions are likely to remain unresolved, at least for the time being, Kyle and Nick told us. Among them:
What happens to MARK MEADOWS, KEVIN McCARTHY and STEVE BANNON, who have continued to resist testifying about their involvement in Trump’s effort to subvert the election results?
How to handle Pence, whose resistance to Trump’s withering pressure may have saved the republic but also left him alienated from a GOP base he’s now cultivating for a potential 2024 bid.
One more thing: “The panel is unlikely to make a formal referral to the Justice Department, which is already deeply engaged in an investigation of matters connected to Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election,” Kyle and Nick told us. “But members have already made clear they believe Trump violated multiple laws in his effort to cling to power — an assertion they are likely to home in on further in their hearing and final report. And investigators still need to determine a timetable for the release of their interview transcripts and recordings, or a potential framework for sharing their information with DOJ.”
REFRESHER — “A guide to the biggest moments in the Jan. 6 hearings so far,” by WaPo’s Amber Phillips
ONE PLACE YOU WON’T BE HEARING ABOUT IT — “Why Jan. 6 is mostly absent from the midterms,” by Jordain Carney, Sarah Ferris and Ally Mutnick
Good Thursday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
STATISTIC OF THE DAY — By 2030, approximately 1 in 7 American voters will be LGBTQ, per new research conducted by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and Bowling Green State University, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau. “The researchers expect to see that share grow to nearly 1-in-5 by 2040,” Madison Fernandez reports.
FOLLOWING THE MONEY —NYT’s Ken Vogel excavates LEONARD LEO’s attempt to reshape American life via an “opaque, sprawling network” that has spent nearly $504 million since 2015, and which Leo has built “into one of the best-funded and most sophisticated operations in American politics, giving him extraordinary influence as he pushes a broad array of hot-button conservative causes and seeks to counter what he sees as an increasing leftward tilt in society.”
For Democrats, Oregon is suddenly in jeopardy.
Yesterday, we highlighted Biden’s surprising decision to visit Oregon in the final weeks before the midterms, spurred by rising Democratic anxieties about multiple key races there.
Now, Christopher Cadelago and Zach Montellaro have a deep dive on the governor’s race, where a three-way split could end a four-decade Dem stranglehold on the office.
“The race was competitive long before Biden rolled into town” to campaign for TINA KOTEK, Zach told Playbook on Wednesday night. “Republicans started making serious noise about the state once CHRISTINE DRAZAN won her fractured primary, and Democrats involved in governor races have long contended that the unique dynamics of the three-way primary made it sneakily competitive.” Meanwhile, BETSY JOHNSON, a former Democratic state senator-turned-independent candidate, attracted major donations and is consistently polling in the high teens and low 20s, leading Dems to see her as something of a spoiler in the race.
“For my money, this is probably the second or third most competitive gubernatorial race this year,” Zach told us. “That’s not something I would have imagined saying even a year ago.”
BIG PICTURE
CHOICE LANGUAGE — “How Democratic men are centering abortion access on the campaign trail,” by The 19th’s Shefali Luthra: JOHN FETTERMAN’s “online videos emphasizing abortion rights largely feature endorsements from women, and a recent abortion-centric ad from Orange County’s JAY CHEN, running in the competitive 45th Congressional District, also relies on a woman narrator. [BETO] O’ROURKE does not appear until the end of his abortion-related TV ad; the clip is narrated by a variety of women.
“The strategy marks a contrast to the ads women are running in similarly competitive races. Sen. MAGGIE HASSAN, of New Hampshire, has also touted her stance on abortion rights — but her TV ad on the issue simply shows the senator talking to the camera. VAL DEMINGS, a member of the U.S. House who is challenging Florida Sen. MARCO RUBIO, has taken a similar approach.”
BATTLE FOR THE SENATE
BARNES PUTS UP THE BAT-SIGNAL — As Democrat MANDELA BARNES starts to fall behind in polls in the Wisconsin Senate race, he’s hoping for some big names to swoop in and save the day, Christopher Cadelago and Holly Otterbein report. “Barnes’ campaign has privately reached out to BARACK OBAMA’s team to get the former president on the trail in the closing days of his challenge to Republican Sen. RON JOHNSON, two people familiar with the outreach told POLITICO. … Among other proposals, Wisconsin Democrats have discussed bringing in President Joe Biden, two people familiar with the conversations said. They are in various stages of planning with Vice President KAMALA HARRIS and Sen. BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.).”
IN PENNSYLVANIA — Democrat JOHN FETTERMAN sat down with the Philly Inquirer’s editorial board for an interview on Wednesday, where he said he would “emulate Democratic Sen. BOB CASEY if he’s elected to the Senate, while distancing himself from both the left and right wings of his party,” Jonathan Tamari and Julia Terruso write. “However, Fetterman was often vague in describing specific policies or the role he hoped to carve out in the Senate as he spoke for nearly 30 minutes with The Inquirer’s editorial board and two reporters.”
Worth noting: “Still, Fetterman’s wide-ranging interview with The Inquirer was in sharp contrast to Republican nominee MEHMET OZ, who has been invited for a similar meeting and hasn’t accepted.”
— “Disability Advocates Say The Response To John Fetterman Using Closed Captioning In An Interview As He Recovers From A Stroke Was ‘Deeply Upsetting’ And Stigmatizing,” by BuzzFeed’s David Mack
FWIW … NBC’s Dasha Burns, who conducted the interview, responded on Wednesday: “It’s possible for two different reporters to have two different experiences w a candidate. Our team was in the room w him & reported what happened in it, as journalists do. … We were happy to accommodate closed captioning. Our reporting did not and should not comment on fitness for office. This is for voters to decide. What we do push for as reporters is transparency. It’s our job. Fetterman sat down and answered our questions. That’s his job.” Watch the full interview
And an NBC spokesperson gave us this statement: “Dasha is a widely respected beat reporter on the Pennsylvania Senate race and has provided in-depth reporting from the state for the better part of the last year. We stand behind her extensive coverage of all the important dimensions of this year’s Senate campaigns.”
MASTERS OF HIS FATE — PETER THIEL is giving MITCH ...
Kevin McCarthy Is A Quisling Who Stands Apart https://digitalalaskanews.com/kevin-mccarthy-is-a-quisling-who-stands-apart/
Two news stories highlighting the House minority speaker’s role in downplaying the January 6 coup attempt show him to be a weak and amoral Trump collaborator.
October 13, 2022
There’s base, amoral self-advancement—and then there’s whatever House GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy does. McCarthy, who has represented California’s 22nd District since 2013, is angling for the speakership of the House, and less than a month away, the midterm elections still narrowly favor a GOP majority. In late September, he tried to cement his case for congressional power with a knock-off version of the Republican Party’s famed 1994 Contract with America called the Commitment to America. The document boils down to hand-waving over inflation and government spending alongside breathless callouts to the bogus GOP crusade for ballot reform (read: election denialism) and the paranoid moral panic over critical race theory-inflected public-school curricula.
A much better measurement of what a McCarthy speakership might yield came this week with a pair of news stories highlighting his role in downplaying the attempted coup at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. In a meeting last summer with two Washington, DC, police officers and the mother of an officer who died after the insurrection, McCarthy falsely claimed that President Donald Trump had no real-time awareness that the mob he had incited was laying siege to the Capitol. (In fact, as McCarthy well knew, Trump was raptly watching TV coverage of Capitol riot in the White House after he’d been rebuffed in his plan to walk down to the Capitol alongside the rioters-in-the-making.) DC Police Officer Michael Fanone, who had recorded the McCarthy meeting, told CNN that McCarthy deliberately misrepresented Trump’s intense interest in the January 6 siege. Meanwhile, the House GOP caucus was backing away from its pledge to appoint responsible lawmakers to the House committee investigating the insurrection. (So much, it seems, for a “commitment to America.”)
As Fanone explained, he took the precaution of recording the call because he “saw how [McCarthy] deviated from his original statements immediately after January 6 to seize upon the politics of the moment.” Fanone said he neither expected McCarthy to “tell the truth” nor to “recount the conversation accurately.” while castigating the “indifference” McCarthy and other lawmakers feel toward the “the actual American people they are representing.”
And sure enough, another report, disclosing new material from Unchecked, a forthcoming book by Washington Post reporter Karoun Demirjian and Politico reporter Rachael Bade, drove home just how fully McCarthy operates within a theater of cruelty of his own devising. (Full disclosure: Demirjian worked for me when I was an editor at Congressional Quarterly.) After Washington House GOP member Jaime Herrera Beutler confirmed to the press that McCarthy had urgently requested Trump to issue a statement calling on the rioters to stand down, McCarthy delivered an indignant tirade to the congresswoman, prompting her to break down in tears. “I alone am holding the party together!” McCarthy yelled. “I have been working with Trump to keep him from going after Republicans like you and blowing up the party and destroying all our work!”
Of course, we now see the fallout from McCarthy’s self-advertised heroism all about us. To begin with, just two weeks after a disoriented McCarthy made a token show of outrage over the siege of the Capitol, he kissed Trump’s ring at Mar-a-Lago to save himself from the backlash he threatened Herrera Beutler with. (As the authors of Unchecked report, the minority leader had been rattled by Trump deriding him as “the biggest pussy in Washington” for floating a half-hearted proposal to pursue a censure of the president in lieu of impeachment proceedings.) Since the McCarthy-Trump alliance was renewed, the country is saddled with an openly authoritarian Republican Party in thrall to Trump’s election lies that’s ensured Republicans like Herrera—i.e., principled conservatives who oppose Trump’s thugocracy—are purged from leadership and largely consigned to electoral doom. If that is the work Kevin McCarthy was so hellbent on preserving, it is far better left destroyed.
GOP congressional leaders like McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell “had the opportunity to fundamentally purge the party of Trump with the second impeachment,” says longtime congressional scholar Norman Ornstein, senior fellow emeritus with the American Enterprise Institute. “The moral cowardice is astonishing.” After the January 6 attacks, Ornstein notes, McConnell “did a tally of his colleagues. He looked at the numbers and saw they were still dealing with 60 percent of Republicans sticking with Trump and believing the election was stolen. So his pragmatic choice was to say to the congressional Republicans who were leaning toward impeachment, ‘Go ahead, but we won’t be with you.’ For McCarthy, his weakness and moral cowardice go back further. This is not ruthless pragmatism like McConnell’s—it’s weakness and a complete lack of moral character.”
A case in point, Ornstein recalls, is another damning meeting caught on tape from 2016, when McCarthy told a group of GOP lawmakers that both Trump and their colleague California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher were on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s payroll. And then, of course, there’s the conduct of the caucus McCarthy leads: “You stand by while Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Louis Gohmert all say disgusting racist things, and you just say nothing,” Ornstein says. But he also goes on to note that McCarthy’s leadership approach comes out of a longstanding GOP playbook: “This is a party that completely lost its way going back before Trump. You have a party that sees how demographic change in this country is bringing it to a crossroads: You either can change your rhetoric and your policies to broaden your appeal and compete with the Democrats on a level playing field, or you can say, ‘We’re going to double down on what we’ve been doing: suppress votes, blow up the norms to achieve our goals by subverting democracy.’ They chose the latter course, and they’ve had success, and are continuing to have success. I can tell you this: If they take a majority in the House, we are headed for serious trouble.”
Yet even in the face of forces blockading basic moral reasoning in the GOP leadership, Ornstein acknowledges that McCarthy is truly a quisling who stands apart: “I have rarely had more contempt for a figure in public life than I do for Kevin McCarthy.” It’s a safe bet that this scathing assessment represents the only kind of history that a House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is ever going to make.
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SIFI Reports Detailed Positive Results And New Data From The Completed Phase 3 Trial Of AKANTIOR In Patients With Acanthamoeba Keratitis Presented At The American Academy Of Ophthalmology Annual Meeting In Chicago | BioSpace
SIFI Reports Detailed Positive Results And New Data From The Completed Phase 3 Trial Of AKANTIOR® In Patients With Acanthamoeba Keratitis Presented At The American Academy Of Ophthalmology Annual Meeting In Chicago | BioSpace https://digitalalaskanews.com/sifi-reports-detailed-positive-results-and-new-data-from-the-completed-phase-3-trial-of-akantior-in-patients-with-acanthamoeba-keratitis-presented-at-the-american-academy-of-ophthalmology-annual-2/
87% of patients receiving AKANTIOR® in the Phase 3 Trial were medically cured within a median duration of 4 months compared to 55% with the treatment protocols used in real-world clinical practice today.
With the AKANTIOR® protocol used in the Phase 3 Trial, 62% of patients achieved full vision restoration compared to 28% with the treatment protocols used in real-world clinical practice today.
3% of patients receiving AKANTIOR® in the Phase 3 Trial required cornea transplant which increased to 7.6% after leaving the trial, compared to 25% or more reported in recent published literature.
SIFI reaffirms guidance of potential regulatory approval of AKANTIOR® by the European Commission and New Drug Application to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2023.
AKANTIOR® is available via Early Access Program in the meantime.
CATANIA, Italy, Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — SIFI S.p.A (SIFI or “the Company”), a leading international ophthalmic company headquartered in Italy, today reported the presentation of positive results from the positive Phase 3 Study [NCT03274895] of AKANTIOR® (polihexanide 0.8mg/ml), an investigational anti-amoebic polymer, an orphan drug, for the treatment of acanthamoeba keratitis (“AK”). The Company also reported new data of an indirect comparison of the Phase 3 Trial with the comparable Retrospective Study. The results were presented by Professor John Dart, the Principal Investigator of the Phase 3 trial for AKANTIOR®, at the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) Annual Meeting 2022 (Jones-Smolin lecture), which occurred on October 2, 2022, in Chicago. The Company previously announced positive top-line results from the Phase 3 Trial in October 2021 after more than 15 years of research & development efforts.
The 135-patient randomised, assessor-masked, active-controlled, multiple-centre pivotal Phase 3 Trial showed 84.8% of patients on AKANTIOR® reached a clinical resolution of acanthamoeba keratitis and associated inflammation (medical cure) within a median of 4 months of treatment vs 88.5% of the control arm of an unlicensed combination of PHMB 0.2mg/ml + propamidine 1.0mg/ml reaching the pre-defined non-inferiority primary endpoint.
The new analysis presented at the AAO showed that when corrected for risk and other potentially confounding factors – including the stage of the disease at baseline, delay in diagnosis, prior-corticosteroid use and others – the clinical resolution rate increased to 86.7% in the AKANTIOR® arm. This compares to cure rates with unlicensed therapies of 55% as reported in a subgroup of the 227-patient real-world Retrospective Study (Papa V. British Journal of Ophthalmology 2020) of treatment protocols used in clinical practice today. Additionally, with the AKANTIOR® protocol, 62% of patients achieved full visual acuity restoration compared to 28% with the treatment protocols used in the Retrospective Study. Similarly, the proportion of patients ending up with poor visual acuity of BCVA of less than 6/18 were decreased from 47% in the Retrospective Study to 19% with the AKANTIOR® protocol.
Only 3% patients (2 out 66) receiving AKANTIOR® required cornea transplant in the Phase III Trial, which increased to 7.6% (5 out 66) after leaving the trial. This compares to 25% or more as reported in the recent published literature.
The safety & tolerability profile was similar to what was seen in the previously reported Phase 1 results on healthy volunteers as well as in extensive pre-clinical and toxicology studies with only 1 patient on AKANTIOR® failing treatment because of toxicity.
John Dart, Professor at the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology said “The medical cure rate of 86.7% for AKANTIOR® in our Phase 3 Trial was similar for the widely used, dual agent, control treatment of PHMB 0.2mg/ml and propamidine 1.0 mg/ml. These results are better than we had anticipated and amongst the best reported. We have shown that much of this improvement is the result of the detailed delivery protocol, developed and evaluated by the 6 European study centres, and which is now available to clinicians. Unlike the control treatments, AKANTIOR® is a monotherapy which has been through extensive safety, stability, and efficacy tests. As monotherapy it is both easier to use and, if licensed as we expect, will become widely available unlike current therapies which have to be manufactured by compounding pharmacies resulting in frequent treatment delays.”
Based on these and full study results, the Company currently plans to file New Drug Application (NDA) with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2023, which is consistent with previous guidance. Further, as previously announced, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) validated the Company’s Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) for AKANTIOR® in May 2022 Accordingly, the Company maintains its guidance of expecting full regulatory approval by the European Commission mid-2023. In the meantime, as previously announced, the Company make AKANTIORÒ available for patients within the Early Access Program (EAP) currently running in several European countries
Dr. Vincenzo Papa, Head of Scientific Affairs, stated, “This is a culmination of our research and development as well as complex manufacturing and chemistry efforts which required huge investment for more than 15 years.” Dr. Papa continued, “Acanthamoeba keratitis is a life-changing eye infection and, despite being rare, it is responsible for 50% of blindness among contact lens users. Finally, we can do something about this by potentially bringing the first approved medicine to patients with acanthamoeba keratitis.”
SIFI is evaluating different options for the commercialization of AKANTIOR® globally, including potential out-license agreements outside its core markets.
ABOUT Phase 3 TRIAL: This was a randomized, assessor-masked, active-controlled, multiple-centre pivotal Phase 3 Trial designed to evaluate the efficacy, safety and tolerability of AKANTIOR® compared to a control arm of an unlicensed combination of polihexanide 0.2mg/ml + propamidine 1.0mg/ml for the treatment of acanthamoeba keratitis [NCT03274895]. Both treatment arms used a standardized, day-only treatment protocol. The primary endpoint was defined as the ‘clinical resolution rate over a 12-month timeframe’, based on the percentage of patients cured following 30 days after the discontinuance of all study therapies and within 12 months of randomization. 135 patients were randomized in the trial, of which 69 were randomized into the treatment arm and the remaining 66 into the control arm. The average age of the patients was 36.5 years old (ranging from 15–73); 58.2% of the patients were female. 127 patients received a study drug and had its diagnosis confirmed via independent laboratory and constitute the Intention-To-Treat (ITT) population. The main study results are as follows:
The primary endpoint demonstrated non-inferiority of AKANTIOR® + placebo versus a combination regimen of polihexanide 0.2 mg/mL + propamidine 1 mg/mL (control arm). Respectively, the clinical resolution rate within 12 months of patients treated with AKANTIOR® + placebo was 84.8% (56 out of 66) and 88.5% (54 out of 61) for the control arms (p=0,544). When the data is corrected for risk-factors using multi-variate ANCOVA model: age, severity at baseline, delay in diagnosis, study centre, and drugs used prior to baseline (including steroids), the clinical resolution rate in the AKANTIOR® arm was 86.7% versus 86.6% in the control arm.
Patients treated with AKANTIOR® + placebo experienced statically significant improvement in BCVA at the end of the study compared to baseline (0.188 vs 0.473 LogMAR; p 0.0001), with more than 50% of patients achieving normal vision (LogMAR = 0). There were no statistically significant differences between the two treatment arms.
The median time to cure on AKANTIOR® was 4 months (125 days). 80% of patients achieved a cure with less than 6.6 months of treatment.
There were no statistically significant differences between the two treatment arms.
The impact of acanthamoeba keratitis on patients’ health status was analysed with Visual Function Questionnaire 25 (VFQ–25) and quality of life with EuroQoL five-dimension five-level (EQ–5D–5L) instrument. Both instruments showed a statistically significant improvement in quality of life on AKANTIOR® at the end of the trial compared to baseline. There were no statistically significant differences between the two treatment arms.
3% patients (2 out 66) receiving AKANTIOR® required cornea transplant in the Phase 3 Trial, and 5 out 66 (7,6%) after leaving the Trial. No patients in the control arm required cornea transplant during the Phase 3 Trial and to 4 out 61 (6.6%) after leaving the Phase 3 Trial.
The adverse events reported were similar between both arms of the trial. 1 patient in each arm (1,5% vs 1,6%) failed therapy because of toxicity. There were no abnormalities in blood chemistry.
ABOUT AKANTIOR®: AKANTIOR® (polihexanide) stands to become the first approved drug for the treatment of acanthamoeba keratitis in the world. It is an anti-amoebic polymer that acts on both the trophozoites and cysts of the protozoan Acanthamoeba. It is formulated at a unique 0.8mg/ml high dose strength which makes it possible to administer as monotherapy eye drops in single-dose containers. In contrast, the various unlicensed or off-label, non-standardised, multi-agent management approaches used currently are base...
TSMC Cuts Capex On Tool Delays Demand Woes; Cautious On Outlook
TSMC Cuts Capex On Tool Delays, Demand Woes; Cautious On Outlook https://digitalalaskanews.com/tsmc-cuts-capex-on-tool-delays-demand-woes-cautious-on-outlook/
Q3 profit T$280.9 bln vs T$265.64 bln analyst view
Q3 revenue up 36% on year at $20.23 bln
Sees Q4 revenue up 29% to $19.9-$20.7 billion
TAIPEI, Oct 13 (Reuters) – Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC (2330.TW) cut its annual investment budget by at least 10% for 2022 and struck a more cautious note than usual on upcoming demand, flagging challenges from rising inflationary costs and predicting a chip downturn next year.
Speaking on the latest set of U.S. export controls aimed at slowing China’s progress in advanced chip manufacturing, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said on Thursday that it had obtained a one-year authorisation that covered its factory in Nanjing, China.
The new rules require companies looking to supply Chinese chipmakers with advanced gear to obtain a licence from the U.S. Department of Commerce, though Washington is expected to spare some foreign companies operating in China.
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“Based on our initial reading and feedback from customers the new regulations sets the control threshold at a very high-end specification, primarily used for AI or supercomputing applications. Therefore our initial assessment is the impact to TSMC is limited and manageable,” Wei said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) , the world’s largest contract chipmaker, makes most of its chips in Taiwan.
After posting an 80% surge in third-quarter profit, the strongest growth in two years, TSMC said it was being more conservative in planning investments for 2023.
“We expect probably in 2023 the semiconductor industry will likely decline, but TSMC also is not immune,” Wei told a media call.
TSMC’s dominance in making some of the world’s most advanced chips for high-end customers such as Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O) had shielded it from the downturn flagged by chipmakers including AMD (AMD.O) and Micron Technology Inc (MU.O).
The Taiwanese company’s commentary on Thursday, though, was more in line with industry concerns about decades-high inflation, rising interest rates and COVID-19 lockdowns in China that have squeezed the consumer electronics market.
TOOL DELAYS
TSMC, Asia’s most valuable listed firm, cut its capital expenditure (capex) for 2022 to around $36 billion. In July, the company said it would skim the lower end of its previous capex guidance of $40 billion to $44 billion this year, with some expenses pushed to next year because of a delay in the delivery of some chip-making equipment.
“About half of the change is due to capacity optimisation based on the current medium-term outlook and the other half is due to continued tool delivery challenges,” Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang told a media call.
For the fourth-quarter, TSMC forecast a 29% rise in revenue to between $19.9 billion and $20.7 billion, compared with $15.74 billion a year earlier.
The company said its data centre and auto businesses remained steady for now, and that its business overall will be more resilient than others.
“We say 2023 is still a growth year for TSMC, and the overall industry probably will decline,” said Wei.
Only in July, TSMC said it had seen little impact from the current down cycle in the sector and long-term demand for its chips was “firmly in place” thanks to businesses shopping for high-performance computing chips used in 5G networks and data centres, as well as an increased use of chips in gadgets and vehicles.
Net profit for the third quarter ended September rose to T$280.9 billion ($8.81 billion), compared with the T$265.64 billion average of 21 analyst estimates compiled by Refinitiv.
Revenue for the quarter climbed 36% to $20.23 billion, versus TSMC’s prior estimated range of $19.8 billion to $20.6 billion. China accounted for just 8% of revenue in the third quarter, down from 13% in the second.
Shares in TSMC have fallen almost 36% so far this year, giving it a market value of $323.7 billion. The stock fell 0.6% on Thursday, compared with a 2.1% fall for the benchmark index (.TWII).
($1 = 31.8870 Taiwan dollars)
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Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Sarah Wu; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Edmund Klamann and Ana Nicolaci da Costa
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Ukraine War: UN General Assembly Condemns Russia Annexation
Ukraine War: UN General Assembly Condemns Russia Annexation https://digitalalaskanews.com/ukraine-war-un-general-assembly-condemns-russia-annexation/
Image source, EPA
Image caption,
A screen at the UN in New York shows how some nations voted with green, red and yellow markers
The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to condemn Russia’s attempts to annex four regions of Ukraine.
The resolution was supported by 143 countries, while 35 states – including China and India – abstained.
As well as Russia, four countries rejected the vote, namely Belarus, North Korea, Syria and Nicaragua.
Although symbolic, it was the highest number of votes against Russia since the invasion.
Last week, in a grand ceremony in the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin signed documents to make the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson part of Russia.
The agreements were signed with the Moscow-installed leaders of the four regions, and came after self-proclaimed referendums in the areas that were denounced as a “sham” by the West.
The resolution calls on the international community not to recognise any of Russia’s annexation claims and demands its “immediate reversal”. It welcomes and “expresses its strong support” for efforts to de-escalate the conflict through negotiation.
The countries which voted with Russia all have a longstanding stance of criticising Western governments.
Belarus is considered a satellite state of its neighbour and ally, and its territory was used in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
As well as China and India, which have attempted to remain neutral on the conflict, parties that abstained from the vote included 19 nations in Africa.
Many African countries have avoided taking sides in the war – which has been seen as a reflection of efforts to maintain longstanding trade ties, or of historic non-alignment policies.
Three of four states that were visited by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in July – Congo-Brazzaville, Ethiopia and Uganda – chose to abstain.
Meanwhile, all four nations that featured on a recent trip by Ukraine’s own foreign minister – Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya and Senegal – voted at the UN to condemn Russia.
Dmytro Kuleba made his tour in an apparent effort to counter Russian influence in Africa, although he cut short his visit after major Ukrainian cities came under missile fire on Monday.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was grateful to the countries that did support the resolution.
“The world had its say – [Russia’s] attempts at annexation is [sic] worthless and will never be recognised by free nations,” he tweeted, adding that Ukraine would “return all its lands”.
US President Joe Biden said the vote sent a “clear message” to Moscow.
“The stakes of this conflict are clear to all, and the world has sent a clear message in response – Russia cannot erase a sovereign state from the map,” he said.
Dame Barbara Woodward, Britain’s ambassador to the UN, said Russia had failed on the battlefield and at the UN, adding that countries had united to defend the world body’s charter.
“Russia has isolated itself, but Russia alone can stop the suffering. The time to end the war is now,” she said.
The General Assembly vote was triggered after Russia used its veto power to prevent action at the Security Council – the body in charge of maintaining international peace and security. As permanent members, China, the United States, France and the United Kingdom also hold vetoes on the council.
There have been calls for Russia to be stripped of its veto power after the Ukraine invasion.
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Pingree And Thelander Clash Over Support For The Lobster Industry In 1st Congressional District Debate
Pingree And Thelander Clash Over Support For The Lobster Industry In 1st Congressional District Debate https://digitalalaskanews.com/pingree-and-thelander-clash-over-support-for-the-lobster-industry-in-1st-congressional-district-debate/
Oct. 12—Republican Ed Thelander apologized for referring to federal fisheries regulators as rapists after being criticized by Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree during a spirited debate between the 1st Congressional District candidates Wednesday.
While the candidates debated a range of issues, including asylum seekers, energy, abortion and student loan debt, it got personal when they challenged each other over their support for Maine’s lobster industry, which is facing severe restrictions to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale.
Pingree called out Thelander for statements he made earlier Wednesday at a rally for the lobster industry in Portland. In a speech at the event, Thelander compared federal regulations to raping children, saying “you don’t negotiate with rapists.” Maine Democrats issued a statement Wednesday saying the comments show he is unfit for office.
“That is not a good way to move forward on policy and I think doesn’t help the debate at all,” Pingree said during the debate. “It sort of drags it down into the gutter in a way that shouldn’t happen.”
After Pingree criticized the comments, Thelander apologized.
“My comments were over the top and I apologize for that,” he said. “I’m very passionate about it. I love those families. I’m seeing the struggles they have and nothing has been done about it.”
Pingree rejected that assessment. “We didn’t do nothing,” she said, pointing out that she and other members of the delegation from both parties have been fighting similar restrictions since 1997. “Don’t say I’m not passionate about it,” said Pingree, who lives in an island community that relies on the lobster industry.
Both candidates agreed that asylum seekers who are in the country legally should be allowed to work sooner. But Thelander also alleged that asylum seekers are driving crime — an assertion that has previously been refuted by law enforcement.
“If people come here legally we need to get them to work,” he said, adding “because if they come here and can’t work what are they doing — they’re stealing or they’re causing problems.”
When asked why immigration reform, when framed as a workforce issue, wasn’t getting bipartisan support in Congress, Pingree accused Republicans of stoking fear that immigrants are looking to steal jobs from citizens to win votes.
“I think it’s partly because Republicans use it for rhetoric and campaigns,” she said. “They want to scare people.”
Thelander also criticized Pingree for supporting student loan forgiveness, saying that blue-collar workers who did not go to college are being left behind. He said going to college is “a business decision,” and if a student doesn’t have a plan to repay the loans, “then shame on you — you made a deal.”
Pingree acknowledged it is a difficult issue, but said the problem has been allowed to grow for too long.
“A tremendous number of young people in Maine, young people and families, are struggling under the weight of that debt,” she said, adding that many people in their 40s are also struggling with college bills. “If we don’t deal with that problem, I think we’re going to be in trouble.”
Regarding energy policy, Thelander argued that the U.S. could bring down prices in general by increasing the supply of oil. “We’ve got to start drilling for oil again here in America,” Thelander said. “Getting the price of oil down is going to help with everything.”
Pingree said Maine residents are facing a difficult winter with rising energy costs, but that drilling for oil won’t help. “I believe investing in renewable energy is how we’ll bring the costs down,” she said.
Regarding abortion, Pingree said she supports passing a federal law to restore the right to abortion nationwide in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the adoption of strict bans in many states. While Maine law allows abortion until a fetus is viable, or 22 to 24 weeks into a pregnancy, Pingree said that could change if Republicans win control of the Blaine House and the Legislature.
“We would be Alabama tomorrow,” she said, referring to one of the states that banned abortion after the Supreme Court ruling.
Thelander said he is opposed to abortion, but that he would leave it up to individual states to establish limits and does not support a national ban on abortions. “That’s not a federal issue,” he said, adding he wouldn’t impose his personal views through a federal law.
The candidates also clashed over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Thelander said the invasion was caused by a lack of respect for American foreign policy resulting from the messy withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. “We need to lean forward hard and get that back,” he said.
Pingree, however, accused Thelander of excusing “the horrendous actions of Putin and what he’s done to the Ukrainian people,” adding that Republicans and Democrats are united in helping Ukraine.
“Listen, I lived through four years of the Trump administration,” she said, saying the former president shunned allies and embraced adversaries. “He helped get us into this situation by being soft on Putin.”
The debate can be streamed at pressherald.com. The event was sponsored by the Portland Press Herald and Maine Public. Jennifer Rooks of Maine Public moderated the discussion and Joe Lawlor of the Press Herald and Kevin Miller of Maine Public asked questions.
Pingree has represented Maine’s coastal and southern 1st Congressional District since 2009 and hopes to win an eighth term on Nov. 8. Thelander, a former Navy SEAL and a newcomer on the Maine political scene, is campaigning to end that winning streak.
The candidates, like their parties, have opposing views on a wide variety of issues facing Congress and the state.
Pingree has easily defended her seat over the years. In 2020, she won reelection with 62 percent of the vote, and her district is heavily skewed toward Democrats. A September poll from the University of New Hampshire showed Pingree leading Thelander by 57% to 32%. Pingree also leads in the money race, with $615,000 cash on hand, according to the most recent federal campaign reports, compared to $154,000 for Thelander.
Pingree, 67, lives on North Haven, an island in Penobscot Bay. A former state senator, Pingree challenged Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in 2002, but lost that race. Before winning her congressional seat in 2008, Pingree was president and CEO of Common Cause, a national nonprofit with a mission of being a watchdog on government. She has three grown children.
Thelander, 53, served in the Navy for 21 years and participated in U.S. operations in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Central and South America, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean, according to his campaign website. He lives in Bristol with his wife, Liliana, who immigrated from Venezuela and became an American citizen in 1999. They have three children.
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Do Campaign Debates Even Matter Anymore? https://digitalalaskanews.com/do-campaign-debates-even-matter-anymore/
If you made it through the dull Ted Budd and Cheri Beasley Senate debate, pat yourself on the back. You are more engaged than most saner people voting in North Carolina who missed it. It was a snooze fest; at least, that’s what I was told by nearly everyone who watched. The truth is, in their present form, debates don’t matter much anymore.
I know saying that out loud makes the pundit class upset because they like to get on television and talk about how much debates matter. Not only do they need something to talk about, but they repeat the mantra of how sacred they are for the voters and democracy. Did I mention political pundits love to see and hear themselves on television?
The truth is that almost everybody knows who they are voting for now. I know the Civitas poll says a little more than 10% are undecided. I have a hunch most of those folks aren’t undecided and are just playing coy. And if you can’t decide between Cheri Beasley and Ted Budd, why are you even voting? Beasley will carry water for President Biden, and Budd’s a predictable conservative Republican. If you like Biden and the Democrats, you should vote for Beasley. If you prefer a Biden antidote, Budd’s your man. Maybe the undecideds are the smartest people in the room. After all, I understand the dilemma behind picking any politician to send to the fiasco that is Washington D.C.
The real reason debates don’t matter is a little more complex, and I think many readers will agree. Debates are mostly opportunities for candidates to talk to donors, cut campaign ads, and promote soundbites on social media. On top of that, popular media narratives dominate the debate topics. Moderators obsess about issues that help or hurt the political parties, attempting to create headlines or “gotcha” moments for the candidates. That means there is a heavy focus on crime, inflation, and abortion. It’s good to focus on those popular topics, but the media’s tunnel vision tends to neglect other important issues, like the labor participation rate or the national debt.
President Gerald Ford greets supporters at the 1st presidential debate with Jimmy Carter in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Library of Congress-1976)
While most will agree that somebody like Tim Boyum at Spectrum News does a good job and is fair, many moderators are no longer content with moderating but desperately want to be the story. Who can forget Candy Crowley of CNN joining President Obama’s side and arguing with 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney over statements about terrorism in Libya?
In 2015, and obviously editorializing, CNBC Anchor John Harwood asked Donald Trump if he was “running a comic book version of a presidential campaign.” Even if you hate Trump, you must concede he has pretty good political instincts since he was elected president, while many seemingly more qualified Republicans failed.
Debates are highly scripted and offer little, if any, new information. There are so many mediums for candidates to get their message out, and both sides declare victory. I watched a little bit of the J.D. Vance and Tim Ryan U.S. Senate debate in Ohio, and each political tribe on social media claimed their candidate crushed the other. My eyes saw another boring and overly scripted draw.
The news cycle is so short today that even debate errors like Michael Dukakis’s “Kitty Dukakis moment” in 1988 no longer matter as much. Even George H.W. Bush, famously looking at his watch and appearing bored in 1992, wouldn’t nearly have the same impact today. The 24-hour-news cycle dramatically alters the political landscape.
The Massachusetts gubernatorial debates used to offer more rigorous intellectual exchanges between the candidates, but I think even that has fallen by the wayside. We increasingly live in a post-fact and ideologically charged world. Not many minds are being changed by over-scripted candidates.
It’s okay to admit that the debates no longer matter much anymore, and it’s mostly an extension of the circus that is American politics. The good news is that there is so much information today that you can be informed while tuning debates out entirely.
Ray Nothstine is Carolina Journal opinion editor and Second Amendment research fellow at the John Locke Foundation.
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Sunburn The Morning Read Of Whats Hot In Florida Politics 10.13.22
Sunburn — The Morning Read Of What’s Hot In Florida Politics — 10.13.22 https://digitalalaskanews.com/sunburn-the-morning-read-of-whats-hot-in-florida-politics-10-13-22/
Good Thursday morning.
A national analysis of voting trends and data offers a pretty somber snapshot of Florida’s commitment to democracy.
A WalletHub study of the most and least politically engaged states in 2022 puts Florida second to last in overall voter registration.
Ouch.
It ranks Florida 42nd in the nation (read: only eight states are worse) in voter turnout in the 2020 election.
Double ouch.
It gets worse. Though better, Florida still ranks below average, at No. 28 in the nation, for voter turnout in the 2018 Midterm Election, and 33rd in the percentage increase among the electorate from elections in 2016 to 2020, which means the voting public did not significantly turn out in greater numbers when Donald Trump was on the ballot for re-election.
Some bad news about Florida voter engagement.
This is even though Florida ranks best (thankfully, there’s some good news here) in the nation for civic education engagement.
An expert questioned on the survey by WalletHub, Washington and Lee University Professor of Politics Rebecca Harris, said education is a “long-term predictor of political engagement.”
Further, the state came out fairly average as it relates to voter accessibility (No. 18) and political contributions per adult population (13th.)
So, Florida should be doing better, right? Wrong.
Despite the state’s apparent dedication to civil rights education, which has been strengthened in recent years under Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida ranks middle-of-the-pack in overall education, at No. 26.
Combined, the data raises some important questions about voter engagement.
Aside from questions about the state’s education system, analysis within the study pointed to turnout being a function of perceived competitiveness, which all the experts interviewed for the study mentioned.
DeSantis has consistently polled ahead of, if not well ahead of, Democratic challenger Charlie Crist. FiveThirtyEight gives Republican Sen. Marco Rubio a 7-point edge against his Democratic challenger, Val Demings. If voters perceive those races as noncompetitive, Florida may well see a repeat of these trends after Nov. 8. But if they think it might be close, maybe Florida may yet see a bump in democratic engagement.
As they say, only time will tell.
___
Here are some other thoughts this morning:
— Polarization on the ballot: This year’s Midterm Elections could feature the smallest median gap between Senate and gubernatorial races since 1900, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis. That is, a similar amount of people voting for a partisan candidate in one race are likely to cast a ballot for a member of the same party in the other, thus reducing incidences of split-ticket voting. While Vermont is an outlier in that (the state’s Republican Governor and the Democrat running for Senate are both heavy favorites to win), most states can expect to see voters side with the same party in both top-of-ticket races. That includes Florida, where the difference between DeSantis and Rubio’s respective advantages at the polls (DeSantis at R +9.6 and Rubio at R+ 7.1) is just 2.5.
— How far would a Republican majority go?: Whether you agree with it or not (and whether you think what is meant as a warning is more cause for celebration than grief), The Atlantic’s Norm Ornstein offers an interesting, if not dystopian, take on what would be if Republicans accomplish what is expected this Midterm Election — a takeover of both the U.S. House and Senate. “The country will face a series of fundamental challenges much greater than we have had in any modern period of divided government,” he wrote, noting a “direct and palpable threat of default and government shutdown.” While that threat is universal, he also offers a cautionary tale that, for many on the right, will be a cause célèbre — that the hyper-conservative Freedom Caucus would be empowered to fulfill their wish list of impeaching Joe Biden, banning abortion, repealing the Affordable Care Act, getting tough on immigration and blocking any further Trump investigations.
— How the Latino vote could decide the Midterms: There is little question that a majority of Hispanic and Latino voters will continue to support Democrats, but the size of that margin could make all the difference, posits veteran Washington Post reporter and regular New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall. In an exhaustive analysis complete with numerous inquiries to experts, Edsall points to myriad research that points to a swing in either major political party’s favor but notes several trends that could favor Republicans. That includes polling among Hispanic and Latino communities showing support for abortion restrictions, a top-of-mind talking point this cycle. Further, research shows the community feels taken for granted among Democrats. Yet, at the same time, they also report higher support for gun control and increased concern over voter suppression, both issues that should favor Democrats. But unlike Republicans, as the analysis points out, “this is not a contest the Democrats can afford to lose.”
— Does anyone even answer pollsters’ phone calls anymore? Simmer on this for a second. Just 0.4% of the dials made in a New York Times poll currently on the ground have been answered and the subject interview actually completed, according to the outlet. That means a call center interviewer would have to spend two hours dialing numbers to get a single interview done. YIKES. The New York Times tackled lingering questions about how polling is conducted and noted that screened calls are “getting pretty close to ‘death of telephone polling’ numbers.” But, they answered, weighting responses helps and they’re not there yet. Read more here.
— Barbecue buds for a day: Each year, the U.S. Senate hosts a bipartisan luncheon in Washington, where lawmakers cross the aisle in search of a unifying force — good ol’ fashioned BBQ. Sen. Chris Coons, who organizes the event, charges fiscally cheap admission, even if these days the emotional cost is great: “Sit next to someone you don’t know or ever talk to.” While that doesn’t necessarily mean Democrats and Republicans will kumbaya over pork sliders and spareribs, it did bring together Coons, fellow Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Sen. Roy Blunt and Lindsey Graham to lead the luncheon. And the wafting smells of smoked meats and tangy barbecue sauce is sure to put everyone in a good mood, if only for a day. Read more here.
— SITUATIONAL AWARENESS —
—@JoeBiden: Senator Rick Scott has made it clear that he thinks Social Security and Medicare should be on the chopping block every five years. But we won’t let him and the MAGA Republicans try to get their way: http://IWillVote.com.
—@RobFinnertyUSA: Everyone is making a HUGE deal about @jaketapper helping the President pick up his notes when he dropped them during an interview — forget that. I interviewed Donald Trump over the Summer, and he didn’t have a single note … meaning there was nothing TO DROP.
—@MKRaju: The Senate was supposed to be in session this week and next, but under a deal cut by both sides, they only are adopting a motion today by voice vote to formally take up defense authorization bill. Senators are back home instead campaigning and won’t return until after Midterms
—@DaveTrotter101: It’s official, over 200,000 voters have cast their ballots in Florida.
—@JeremyH418: It’s very early but worth noting that while Democrats have returned a greater number of ballots, Republicans have returned a higher percentage of ballots vs. ballots mailed. Interested to see if this is an early tell of an enthusiasm gap.
—@MaryEllenKlas: @KevinGuthrieFL tells legislators convened to provide $360 million in additional emergency funds that it’s still another 3 weeks before floodwaters recede in Central Florida to do road repairs and home debris removal.
—@ChristinaPushaw: EXCLUSIVE BREAKING NEWS: My job is political communications, and I am a conservative. Therefore, I talk to a lot of media and influencers, particularly conservatives. This is literally public record, and my interactions with them on Twitter are also public.
—@Eric_Jotkoff: Humanity does not need Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck … We have Florida man & NASA Administrator @SenBillNelson to save us …
—@JacobOgles: I drive in my Lee County neighborhood and see so much debris and destruction from the storm. Then I see this tiny little sprig growing up through the cracks in my driveway, reminding me that nature has no use for mankind and always hated us and everything we ever made.
—@JBarro: I get a lot of nonsense pitches based on garbage data, but “83% of Americans have tried a butter board” is a new one
— DAYS UNTIL —
NBA season tips off — 5; Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ release — 8; the Gubernatorial General Election debate — 11; Florida Chamber Annual Meeting & Future of Florida Forum — 11; Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Passenger’ releases — 12; Jon Meacham’s ‘And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle’ releases — 12; City & State Florida Digital Summit — 14; Early voting begins for General Election — 16; 2022 General Election — 26; ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ premieres — 29; ‘Captain Marvel 2′ premieres — 29; FITCon 2022 begins — 35; ‘The Flash’ premieres — 35; The World Cup kicks off in Qatar — 39; The U.S. World Cup Soccer Team begins play — 42; Florida TaxWatch’s Annual Meeting begins — 51; ‘Willow’ premieres on Disney+ — 51; McCarthy’s ‘Stella Maris’ releases — 54; ‘Avatar 2’ premieres — 64; final Broadway performance of ‘The Music Man’ with Hugh Jackman — 80; Bruce Springsteen launches his 2023 tour in Tampa — 111; ‘Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ premieres — 127; final performance of ‘Phantom of the Opera’ on Broadway — 128; 2023 Legislative Session convenes — 14...
European Stocks Retreat As Investors Brace Themselves For U.S. Inflation Data
European Stocks Retreat As Investors Brace Themselves For U.S. Inflation Data https://digitalalaskanews.com/european-stocks-retreat-as-investors-brace-themselves-for-u-s-inflation-data/
A customer shops at a supermarket in Oregon.
Wang Ying | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images
European markets pulled back slightly on Thursday morning as investors around the world prepare themselves for the latest U.S. inflation data.
Stocks on the move: Sweco down 7%, Taylor Wimpey down 5%
Swedish engineering consultancy Sweco fell more than 7% in early deals to the bottom of the Stoxx 600, while Taylor Wimpey dropped more than 5% to lead a broad sell-off for U.K. housebuilders.
– Elliot Smith
Wed, Aug 17 202212:29 AM EDT
European markets: Here are the opening calls
European markets are heading for a lower open on Thursday as investors around the world prepare themselves for the latest U.S. inflation data.
The U.K.’s FTSE index is expected to open 12 points lower at 6,812, the German DAX down 41 points at 12,150, the French CAC 23 points lower at 5,803 and Italy’s FTSE MIB 40 points lower at 20,324, according to data from IG.
The lower open in Europe comes amid mixed global sentiment ahead of the latest U.S. inflation reading. U.S. stock futures were up slightly overnight while markets in the Asia-Pacific region were mixed as investors await the data.
Dow Jones’ consensus estimates show the CPI rose 0.3% in September, up from 0.1% in August. That would bring inflation’s annual pace to 8.1% from 8.3%.
A rise in the consumer price index would also follow producer price data that came in higher than expected, data showed on Wednesday. The U.S.’ producer price index, a gauge of final-demand wholesale prices, was up 0.4% in September, more than the consensus estimate of a 0.2% increase, according to Dow Jones.
Markets digested minutes released Wednesday from the September Federal Reserve meeting which showed the central bank expected to keep hiking interest rates until it sees receding inflation.
One comment made some think the Fed might instead slow the rate hikes, if not roll them back, if financial markets tumult continued.
On the data front in Europe, Germany releases final inflation data for September.
— Holly Ellyatt
CNBC Pro: Goldman Sachs favors Tesla and one other big automaker even during an economic slowdown
Goldman Sachs raised its forecasts for electric car sales and said Tesla and another big automaker will benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act.
It comes at a time when the auto sector faces multiple headwinds in 2023, from rising interest rates to a fall in consumer demand.
CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Ganesh Rao
Fed minutes show central bank sees more rate increases, higher rates for longer
The Federal Reserve’s September meeting minutes, released Wednesday, show that the central bank expects to continue increasing interest rates and hold them higher until inflation shows signs of abating.
The minutes reflect policymaker’s discussions ahead of the last 0.75 percentage point increase, the third consecutive hike of that size delivered this year.
The central bank has been surprised with the persistent pace of inflation, but remain optimistic that rate hikes will help bring price increases back in check.
—Carmen Reinicke, Jeff Cox
CNBC Pro: Is Meta a stock to buy or dodge? A bull and a bear face off
These are tumultuous times for Meta, with investors fleeing this year as it struggles with headwinds.
The stock in late September plunged to trade at its lowest since January 2019 – and since then has dropped even more.
Do big investors consider the Facebook parent a buy, now that its shares are so cheap, or is it one to avoid?
CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” spoke to Paul Meeks of Independent Solutions Wealth Management, and Jake Dollarhide of Longbow Asset Management, as they face off in making their bull-and-bear case for Meta.
Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Weizhen Tan
Stocks close lower after choppy session
All three major averages closed lower Wednesday after whipsawing between gains and losses throughout the day.
The S&P 500 shed 0.33%, falling to 3,577.03, its lowest close since November 2020 and its sixth consecutive daily loss.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 28.34 points, or 0.10%, to close at 29,210.85. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.09% to close at 10,417.10.
—Carmen Reinicke
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SIFI Reports Detailed Positive Results And New Data From The Completed Phase 3 Trial Of AKANTIOR In Patients With Acanthamoeba Keratitis Presented At The American Academy Of Ophthalmology Annual Meeting In Chicago
SIFI Reports Detailed Positive Results And New Data From The Completed Phase 3 Trial Of AKANTIOR® In Patients With Acanthamoeba Keratitis Presented At The American Academy Of Ophthalmology Annual Meeting In Chicago https://digitalalaskanews.com/sifi-reports-detailed-positive-results-and-new-data-from-the-completed-phase-3-trial-of-akantior-in-patients-with-acanthamoeba-keratitis-presented-at-the-american-academy-of-ophthalmology-annual/
87% of patients receiving AKANTIOR® in the Phase 3 Trial were medically cured within a median duration of 4 months compared to 55% with the treatment protocols used in real-world clinical practice today.
With the AKANTIOR® protocol used in the Phase 3 Trial, 62% of patients achieved full vision restoration compared to 28% with the treatment protocols used in real-world clinical practice today.
3% of patients receiving AKANTIOR® in the Phase 3 Trial required cornea transplant which increased to 7.6% after leaving the trial, compared to 25% or more reported in recent published literature.
SIFI reaffirms guidance of potential regulatory approval of AKANTIOR® by the European Commission and New Drug Application to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2023.
AKANTIOR® is available via Early Access Program in the meantime.
, /PRNewswire/ — SIFI S.p.A (SIFI or “the Company”), a leading international ophthalmic company headquartered in Italy, today reported the presentation of positive results from the positive Phase 3 Study [NCT03274895] of AKANTIOR® (polihexanide 0.8mg/ml), an investigational anti-amoebic polymer, an orphan drug, for the treatment of acanthamoeba keratitis (“AK”). The Company also reported new data of an indirect comparison of the Phase 3 Trial with the comparable Retrospective Study. The results were presented by Professor John Dart, the Principal Investigator of the Phase 3 trial for AKANTIOR®, at the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) Annual Meeting 2022 (Jones-Smolin lecture), which occurred on October 2, 2022, in Chicago. The Company previously announced positive top-line results from the Phase 3 Trial in October 2021 after more than 15 years of research & development efforts.
The 135-patient randomised, assessor-masked, active-controlled, multiple-centre pivotal Phase 3 Trial showed 84.8% of patients on AKANTIOR® reached a clinical resolution of acanthamoeba keratitis and associated inflammation (medical cure) within a median of 4 months of treatment vs 88.5% of the control arm of an unlicensed combination of PHMB 0.2mg/ml + propamidine 1.0mg/ml reaching the pre-defined non-inferiority primary endpoint.
The new analysis presented at the AAO showed that when corrected for risk and other potentially confounding factors – including the stage of the disease at baseline, delay in diagnosis, prior-corticosteroid use and others – the clinical resolution rate increased to 86.7% in the AKANTIOR® arm. This compares to cure rates with unlicensed therapies of 55% as reported in a subgroup of the 227-patient real-world Retrospective Study (Papa V. British Journal of Ophthalmology 2020) of treatment protocols used in clinical practice today. Additionally, with the AKANTIOR® protocol, 62% of patients achieved full visual acuity restoration compared to 28% with the treatment protocols used in the Retrospective Study. Similarly, the proportion of patients ending up with poor visual acuity of BCVA of less than 6/18 were decreased from 47% in the Retrospective Study to 19% with the AKANTIOR® protocol.
Only 3% patients (2 out 66) receiving AKANTIOR® required cornea transplant in the Phase III Trial, which increased to 7.6% (5 out 66) after leaving the trial. This compares to 25% or more as reported in the recent published literature.
The safety & tolerability profile was similar to what was seen in the previously reported Phase 1 results on healthy volunteers as well as in extensive pre-clinical and toxicology studies with only 1 patient on AKANTIOR® failing treatment because of toxicity.
John Dart, Professor at the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology said “The medical cure rate of 86.7% for AKANTIOR® in our Phase 3 Trial was similar for the widely used, dual agent, control treatment of PHMB 0.2mg/ml and propamidine 1.0 mg/ml. These results are better than we had anticipated and amongst the best reported. We have shown that much of this improvement is the result of the detailed delivery protocol, developed and evaluated by the 6 European study centres, and which is now available to clinicians. Unlike the control treatments, AKANTIOR® is a monotherapy which has been through extensive safety, stability, and efficacy tests. As monotherapy it is both easier to use and, if licensed as we expect, will become widely available unlike current therapies which have to be manufactured by compounding pharmacies resulting in frequent treatment delays.”
Based on these and full study results, the Company currently plans to file New Drug Application (NDA) with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2023, which is consistent with previous guidance. Further, as previously announced, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) validated the Company’s Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) for AKANTIOR® in May 2022 Accordingly, the Company maintains its guidance of expecting full regulatory approval by the European Commission mid-2023. In the meantime, as previously announced, the Company make AKANTIORÒ available for patients within the Early Access Program (EAP) currently running in several European countries
Dr. Vincenzo Papa, Head of Scientific Affairs, stated, “This is a culmination of our research and development as well as complex manufacturing and chemistry efforts which required huge investment for more than 15 years.” Dr. Papa continued, “Acanthamoeba keratitis is a life-changing eye infection and, despite being rare, it is responsible for 50% of blindness among contact lens users. Finally, we can do something about this by potentially bringing the first approved medicine to patients with acanthamoeba keratitis.”
SIFI is evaluating different options for the commercialization of AKANTIOR® globally, including potential out-license agreements outside its core markets.
ABOUT Phase 3 TRIAL: This was a randomized, assessor-masked, active-controlled, multiple-centre pivotal Phase 3 Trial designed to evaluate the efficacy, safety and tolerability of AKANTIOR® compared to a control arm of an unlicensed combination of polihexanide 0.2mg/ml + propamidine 1.0mg/ml for the treatment of acanthamoeba keratitis [NCT03274895]. Both treatment arms used a standardized, day-only treatment protocol. The primary endpoint was defined as the ‘clinical resolution rate over a 12-month timeframe’, based on the percentage of patients cured following 30 days after the discontinuance of all study therapies and within 12 months of randomization. 135 patients were randomized in the trial, of which 69 were randomized into the treatment arm and the remaining 66 into the control arm. The average age of the patients was 36.5 years old (ranging from 15–73); 58.2% of the patients were female. 127 patients received a study drug and had its diagnosis confirmed via independent laboratory and constitute the Intention-To-Treat (ITT) population. The main study results are as follows:
The primary endpoint demonstrated non-inferiority of AKANTIOR® + placebo versus a combination regimen of polihexanide 0.2 mg/mL + propamidine 1 mg/mL (control arm). Respectively, the clinical resolution rate within 12 months of patients treated with AKANTIOR® + placebo was 84.8% (56 out of 66) and 88.5% (54 out of 61) for the control arms (p=0,544). When the data is corrected for risk-factors using multi-variate ANCOVA model: age, severity at baseline, delay in diagnosis, study centre, and drugs used prior to baseline (including steroids), the clinical resolution rate in the AKANTIOR® arm was 86.7% versus 86.6% in the control arm.
Patients treated with AKANTIOR® + placebo experienced statically significant improvement in BCVA at the end of the study compared to baseline (0.188 vs 0.473 LogMAR; p 0.0001), with more than 50% of patients achieving normal vision (LogMAR = 0). There were no statistically significant differences between the two treatment arms.
The median time to cure on AKANTIOR® was 4 months (125 days). 80% of patients achieved a cure with less than 6.6 months of treatment.
There were no statistically significant differences between the two treatment arms.
The impact of acanthamoeba keratitis on patients’ health status was analysed with Visual Function Questionnaire 25 (VFQ–25) and quality of life with EuroQoL five-dimension five-level (EQ–5D–5L) instrument. Both instruments showed a statistically significant improvement in quality of life on AKANTIOR® at the end of the trial compared to baseline. There were no statistically significant differences between the two treatment arms.
3% patients (2 out 66) receiving AKANTIOR® required cornea transplant in the Phase 3 Trial, and 5 out 66 (7,6%) after leaving the Trial. No patients in the control arm required cornea transplant during the Phase 3 Trial and to 4 out 61 (6.6%) after leaving the Phase 3 Trial.
The adverse events reported were similar between both arms of the trial. 1 patient in each arm (1,5% vs 1,6%) failed therapy because of toxicity. There were no abnormalities in blood chemistry.
ABOUT AKANTIOR®: AKANTIOR® (polihexanide) stands to become the first approved drug for the treatment of acanthamoeba keratitis in the world. It is an anti-amoebic polymer that acts on both the trophozoites and cysts of the protozoan Acanthamoeba. It is formulated at a unique 0.8mg/ml high dose strength which makes it possible to administer as monotherapy eye drops in single-dose containers. In contrast, the various unlicensed or off-label, non-standardised, multi-agent management approaches used currently are based on antimicrobials which often must ...
Strikes Possible Blackouts And A Plunging Currency: Brits Are Being Hit By A Wave Of Bad News
Strikes, Possible Blackouts And A Plunging Currency: Brits Are Being Hit By A Wave Of Bad News https://digitalalaskanews.com/strikes-possible-blackouts-and-a-plunging-currency-brits-are-being-hit-by-a-wave-of-bad-news/
Pensioners protest over rising fuel prices at a demonstration outside Downing street called by The National Pensioners Convention and Fuel Poverty Action on February 7, 2022 in London, England.
Guy Smallman | Getty Images
LONDON — “The brains of humans and other animals contain a mechanism designed to give priority to bad news,” former Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman once said.
For Brits, this mechanism has been taking a beating in recent months.
The Bank of England this week has added to its emergency rescue package for British pension funds, while the government brought forward its medium-term fiscal policy plan, having plunged the markets into chaos with its widely-criticized announcements last month.
A number of pension funds were hours from collapse when the central bank intervened on Sep. 28, and policymakers continue to battle against market volatility with further expansions of the bond-buying scheme on Monday and Tuesday.
The spike in interest rate expectations following new Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng’s so-called “mini-budget” also caused mayhem in the mortgage market, leading banks to withdraw products and rates to surge for prospective homeowners.
Meanwhile the British pound fell to an all-time low against the dollar in the aftermath of Kwarteng’s policy announcements, only regaining some ground when the government U-turned on some of its most radical policies, such as the abolition of the top rate of tax for the country’s highest earners.
Kwarteng on Monday announced that his scheduled expansion on last month’s controversial fiscal plans — and an independent assessment of their impact from the Office for Budget Responsibility — would be brought forward by three weeks to Oct. 31, as the Treasury and the Bank of England look to temper market concerns and restore credibility.
The same day, the central bank is expected to begin selling gilts (U.K. sovereign bonds), part of its delayed quantitative tightening efforts as it unwinds pandemic-era monetary stimulus in the hope of tackling runaway inflation.
Economists expect further volatility in the bond market, and peril for pension funds, in the coming weeks ahead of the full budget statement, while the Bank of England continues to walk a tightrope between ensuring fiscal stability and reining in inflation.
‘The recession has begun’
The U.K. is the only G-7 economy not to have re-attained its pre-pandemic GDP level by the second quarter of 2022, Citibank Chief U.K. Economist Benjamin Nabarro pointed out in an Institute for Fiscal Studies event on Tuesday.
The U.K. economy shrank by 0.3% in August, the Office for National Statistics estimated Wednesday, potentially beginning what economists expect will be a lengthy recession through the winter.
The ONS said GDP was only just returning to its pre-pandemic level, highlighting the challenge facing Prime Minister Liz Truss’ “growth, growth, growth” agenda. The prime minister has committed to a radical overhaul of the country’s economic policy, vowing to address anemic growth over the past decade or more, despite her party having been in power since 2010.
The government’s growth plan must also overcome the impact of Brexit, which most economists project will reduce real per capita GDP. The government’s independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) calculated that Brexit would reduce the U.K.’s potential productivity by 4% over the long term, while the OECD projects that the U.K. will have the lowest growth in the G-20 in 2023, apart from heavily sanctioned Russia.
“Real GDP is likely to retreat again in September in line with double-digit inflation eroding household purchasing power and the resulting output loss from additional bank holiday to coincide with Queen Elizabeth’s funeral on Monday 19 September,” said Raj Badiani, economics director at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Queen Elizabeth II, the world’s longest-reigning monarch, died on Sep. 8 after 70 years on the throne, ushering in 10 days of national morning and a public holiday on the day of her funeral.
“We now believe the recession in the U.K. has begun in the third quarter of 2022 and will likely last for three quarters. Our near-term GDP outlook anticipates a recession spilling into 2023 because of a tight and prolonged squeeze on household budget fueling a consumer-led recession,” Badiani added.
S&P also expects the economy to contract over the full year of 2023, despite substantial fiscal stimulus such as the government’s energy price guarantee and income tax cuts, due to rising household borrowing costs, softer demand in critical export markets and persistent volatility in financial markets.
The latest labor market statistics showed U.K. unemployment falling to 3.5%, its lowest rate since 1974, fueled by a rise in the inactivity rate, which now stands at 21.7%.
From June to August, annual growth in average total pay (including bonuses) for employees was 6% while growth in regular pay (excluding bonuses) was 5.4%, representing a real terms decline of 2.4% and 2.9%, respectively.
U.K. inflation slipped slightly to 9.9% in August, with soaring food and energy prices having driven annual consumer price inflation to a 40-year high of 10.1% the previous month, but economists expect it to rise through the remainder of the year.
A worst-case scenario laid out by national electricity system operator the National Grid warned that households and businesses may face three-hour power outages over winter to prevent a collapse of the grid. However, senior cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi told the BBC this week that this scenario is “extremely unlikely.”
Prime Minister Liz Truss is also coming under pressure from lawmakers in her own party to guarantee an increase to welfare benefits in line with inflation, with reports suggesting she could opt for raising them in line with earnings instead, heaping further pain on the country’s lowest-income households.
New research by British investment house Charles Stanley found that 22% of U.K. adults said they were having sleepless nights over market volatility, soaring inflation and the rising cost of living, while one in 10 said they had experienced panic attacks.
“Even under ‘precedented’ circumstances, financial pressures can get the better of us, but we’re living in unprecedented times, and the term ‘financial stress’ has taken on a whole new meaning,” said Lisa Caplan, director of OneStep Financial Planning at Charles Stanley.
“The cost of living crisis is having a detrimental effect on individuals, not only financially, but physically and mentally too.”
Widespread strikes
Postal workers, rail workers, journalists and public barristers have all carried out strikes in recent months in protest over pay and conditions, as wages fail to keep up with inflation running at around 10%.
Rail strikes carried out by members of the RMT union, in protest over pay and conditions have brought the country to a standstill on multiple days throughout the summer and into fall.
Members of the CWU (Communication Workers Union) also continue to strike, including 115,000 postal employees of former state monopoly Royal Mail. CNBC reported Friday that CWU representatives had entered into talks with Royal Mail executives, but 19 days of further postal strikes are still set to go ahead in the runup to the festive period unless substantial progress is made in the coming days.
Meanwhile, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is currently holding its first industrial action ballot in its 106-year history for 300,000 members, demanding a pay rise in line with inflation. The RCN cited new analysis from London Economics, which found that nurses’ real earnings have fallen at twice the rate of the private sector over the last decade.
The government imposed a minimum pay rise to most NHS staff of 4.5% in July, representing a real terms pay cut of more than £1,000 per year when adjusted for inflation.
Waiting times for access to the country’s National Health Service are at an all-time high, with public hospitals beset by staff shortages and a lack of beds.
The GMB union is also holding ballots for ambulance staff in various regions of the country, with paramedics’ real pay down £1,500 per year. Junior doctors will ballot for industrial action in early January, after the government refused to meet the British Medical Association’s demand to restore pay increases to 2008/9 levels by the end of September.
Junior doctors were excluded from the 4.5% NHS uplift, with the government instead imposing an increase of just 2%, which the BMA said is “derisory” in the face of the ongoing cost of living crisis and in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Digital Chevrolet Camaro V8 Hybrid Trumps ZL1 1LE Muscle With Sportier Demeanor
Digital Chevrolet Camaro V8 Hybrid Trumps ZL1 1LE Muscle With Sportier Demeanor https://digitalalaskanews.com/digital-chevrolet-camaro-v8-hybrid-trumps-zl1-1le-muscle-with-sportier-demeanor/
Although there has been significant commotion going on around the segment, sports cars are not doing great these days in America. Alas, not all hope is lost, as always.
Nobody – except for the peeps tucked neatly inside GM’s corner offices – knows what will happen with the Chevy Camaro after the sixth generation has run its natural course. Over at Stellantis, it has been decided that the 2023MY Challenger and Charger models – complete with seven ‘Last Call’ special series – will represent the last hurrah for the ICE-powered versions.
Alone, Ford Motor Company has decided to soldier on with the ICE pony and muscle car lifestyle via the 2024 Mustang in EcoBoost, Coyote V8, and Dark Horse form. But, overall, the situation looks pretty grim. The third quarter and year-to-date sales reveal that people are still shifting away from the sports car segment, even after all the novelties have arrived on the market, including the all-new 2023 Nissan Z.
So, what can be done? Well, Timothy Adry Emmanuel, the virtual artist better known as adry53customs on social media, together with the good folks over at HotCars have proposed a simple (albeit digital) solution that might help the ailing Chevy Camaro recapture some of the lost glory. And they made it a V8 hybrid. That way, it would be eco and traditional at the same time.
But wait, there is more. And in a follow-up post from the initial video presentation (also embedded second below), the pixel master has explained more of the strategy behind a Camaro V8 Hybrid. In essence, he wanted something that could trump the current Camaro ZL1 1LE flagship in a way no one dared. And that would be to exaggerate the potentially sporty character to the detriment of Chevy’s iconic muscle car cues.
The result is an aggressive one, I’ll give him that, but is that what GM enthusiasts really want from the legendary nameplate?
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WATCH: Reporter Reveals What 'very Important Witness' Said About Trump CNN Video
WATCH: Reporter Reveals What 'very Important Witness' Said About Trump – CNN Video https://digitalalaskanews.com/watch-reporter-reveals-what-very-important-witness-said-about-trump-cnn-video/
A former Trump employee has told the FBI about being directed by the former President to move boxes out of a basement storage room to his residence at Mar-a-Lago after Trump’s legal team received a subpoena for any classified documents at the Florida estate, according to a source familiar with the witness’ description. CNN’s Anderson Cooper speaks to Devlin Barrett, one of the Washington Post reporters that broke the story.
Source: CNN
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Trump's Truth Social App Back On Google Play Store Social News XYZ
Trump's Truth Social App Back On Google Play Store – Social News XYZ https://digitalalaskanews.com/trumps-truth-social-app-back-on-google-play-store-social-news-xyz/
San Francisco, Oct 13 (SocialNews.XYZ) Truth Social, the social media app created by former US President Donald Trump, resurfaced on Google Play Store after the tech giant banned it in August over failing to meet its policies.
Shares of Trump’s company Digital World Acquisition Corp went up in the after-hours trading after Google’s decision.
Google said in a statement that it permits apps on the Google Play Store as long as they “comply with our developer guidelines, including the requirement to effectively moderate user-generated content and remove objectionable posts such as those that incite violence”, reports CNBC.
Truth Social has agreed to enforce the content moderation measures on users.
Google last month allowed conservative social media app Parler to be back on its Play Store, after it removed the app in January 2021 for violating its policies following the US Capitol riots.
Trump’s media company is facing a probe from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) following a complaint alleging securities violations.
Twitter had also banned Trump in January 2021 “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” following the January 6 siege on the Capitol.
Trump founded Truth Social after he was banned from Twitter.
Truth Social is now available to the 44 per cent of smartphone users in the US who are on Android.
Tesla and SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk last week called Trump’s “Truth Social” app as a “Trumpet” of “right-wing echo chamber”.
The billionaire slammed Trump’s social media app, Truth Social, in a recent interview with Financial Times.
Musk said he bought Twitter in order to avoid the site becoming a counterpart to Truth Social.
Truth Social suffered a rocky rollout. The social media app also has considerably less reach than Twitter with nearly 513,000 daily active users compared to Twitter’s 229 million.
Source: IANS
About Gopi
Gopi Adusumilli is a Programmer. He is the editor of SocialNews.XYZ and President of AGK Fire Inc.
He enjoys designing websites, developing mobile applications and publishing news articles on current events from various authenticated news sources.
When it comes to writing he likes to write about current world politics and Indian Movies. His future plans include developing SocialNews.XYZ into a News website that has no bias or judgment towards any.
He can be reached at gopi@socialnews.xyz
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Concerning Trump Russian Report More So For The United States Government
Concerning Trump Russian Report More So For The United States Government https://digitalalaskanews.com/concerning-trump-russian-report-more-so-for-the-united-states-government/
While the next United States government will be Republican that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be Trump the former President – who knows yet.
The current Commander-In-Chief Biden’s administration has proven to be very slow in delivery of weapons to Ukraine in the Putin’s Russia war lately and on a Trump note – a concerning report regarding Russia has emerged:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-russia-fbi-sources-confidential-maralago-1234608878/
Concerning report for the US maybe more so than Trump. Interesting some of the parts on Russia related informants and spies actually in the US itself – highly concerning for the US administration in particular.
It is up to the reader to decide on that report.
It will be interesting to see how things play out in the coming weeks.
Certainly as the Democrats weaken and the Republicans get stronger ahead of the midterms during a time of war and – flare ups with China and Taiwan.
Related
For Latest Fight News Click Below:
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AP Top News At 1:10 A.m. EDT https://digitalalaskanews.com/ap-top-news-at-110-a-m-edt/
Ukraine’s Kyiv area hit by Iranian-made kamikaze drones
KYIV, UKRAINE (AP) — Ukraine’s capital region was struck by Iranian-made kamikaze drones early Thursday morning, sending rescue workers rushing to the scene as residents awoke to air raid sirens for the fourth morning in a row following Russia’s massive, deadly assault across the country on Monday. Kyiv regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba said the strike occurred in the area around the capital city. It was not yet clear if there were any casualties. In the southern city of Mykolaiv, overnight shelling destroyed a five-story apartment building as fighting continued along Ukraine’s southern front. Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Sienkovych said the building’s top two floors were completely destroyed in a single strike and the rest of the building was left in rubble.
EXPLAINER: US weapons systems Ukraine will or won’t get
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian leaders are pressing the U.S. and Western allies for air defense systems and longer-range weapons to keep up the momentum in their counteroffensive against Russia and fight back against Moscow’s intensified attacks. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday said allies are committed to sending weapons “as fast as we can physically get them there.” And he said defense leaders meeting in Brussels are working to send a wide array of systems, ranging from tanks and armored vehicles to air defense and artillery. But there are still a number of high-profile, advanced weapons that Ukraine wants and the U.S.
Social Security recipients expected to get big benefit boost
WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of Social Security recipients will learn soon just how high a boost they’ll get in their benefits next year. The increase to be announced Thursday, expected to be the largest in 40 years, is fueled by record high inflation and is meant to help cover the higher cost of food, fuel and other goods and services. How well it does that depends on inflation next year. The boost in benefits will be coupled with a 3% drop in Medicare Part B premiums, meaning retirees will get the full impact of the jump in Social Security benefits. The announcement comes just weeks before the midterm elections, and at a time when Democrats and Republicans are sparring about high prices now and how best to shore up the program financially in the future.
Little sign of relief expected in September inflation data
WASHINGTON (AP) — Any Americans hoping for relief from months of punishing inflation might not see much in Thursday’s government report on price increases in September. Lower gas prices will probably reduce overall consumer inflation for a third straight month. But measures of “core” inflation, which are closely watched because they exclude volatile food and energy costs, are expected to return to a four-decade peak. Economists have estimated that the government’s consumer price index jumped 8.1% in September from 12 months earlier, according to a survey by the data provider FactSet. That is a distressingly large gain, though below the 9.1% year-over-year peak that was reached in June.
Poll: Most in US say misinformation spurs extremism, hate
Americans from across the political spectrum say misinformation is increasing political extremism and hate crimes, according to a new poll that reflects broad and significant concerns about false and misleading claims ahead of next month’s midterm elections. About three-quarters of U.S. adults say misinformation is leading to more extreme political views and behaviors such as instances of violence based on race, religion or gender. That’s according to the poll from the Pearson Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. “We’re at a point now where the misinformation is so bad you can trust very little of what you read in the media or social media,” said 49-year-old Republican Brett Reffeitt of Indianapolis, who participated in the survey.
Georgia features Deep South’s only competitive US House race
GEORGETOWN, Ga. (AP) — In an uphill fight against a 30-year incumbent, Republican congressional candidate Chris West was scratching for votes in Georgia’s second-smallest county on a recent October evening. West was telling voters in Georgetown, just across the Chattahoochee River from Alabama, that they should dump longtime Democrat Sanford Bishop if they’re unhappy with inflation and gas prices. West said his own experience as a commercial developer would help improve the fortunes of Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District, long one of the nation’s poorest. “Sanford has represented this district for 30 years now. And we have been in the top 10 poorest congressional districts for the last 30 years,” West told supporters.
Jan. 6 hearing promises ‘surprising’ details before election
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Jan. 6 committee is set to unveil “surprising” details including evidence from Donald Trump’s Secret Service about the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol in what is likely to be its last public hearing before the November midterm elections. The hearing Thursday afternoon, the 10th public session by the panel, is expected delve into Trump’s “state of mind” and the central role the defeated president played in the multipart effort to overturn the election, according to a committee aide who discussed the plans on condition of anonymity. The committee is starting to sum up its findings: Trump, after losing the 2020 presidential election, launched an unprecedented attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory.
Alex Jones ordered to pay $965 million for Sandy Hook lies
WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — Jurors ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Wednesday to pay nearly $1 billion to Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims’ relatives and an FBI agent, who said he turned their loss and trauma into years of torment by promoting the lie that the rampage was a hoax. The $965 million verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host for spreading the myth that the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns.
North Korea says Kim supervised cruise missile tests
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised tests of long-range cruise missiles, which he described as a successful demonstration of his military’s expanding nuclear strike capabilities and readiness for “actual war,” state media said Thursday. Wednesday’s tests extended a record number of weapons demonstrations this year by North Korea, which has punctuated its testing activity with threats to preemptively use nuclear weapons against South Korea and the United States if it perceives its leadership as under threat. Analysts say Kim is exploiting the distraction created by Russia’s war on Ukraine, using it as a window to accelerate arms development as he pursues a full-fledged nuclear arsenal that could viably threaten regional U.S.
China’s Xi gets chance to tighten hold on economy at meeting
BEIJING (AP) — President Xi Jinping, China’s most influential figure in decades, gets a chance to install more allies who share his vision of an even more dominant role in the economy for the ruling Communist Party and tighter control over entrepreneurs at a party meeting that starts this weekend. The only question, economists and political analysts say, is whether China’s economic slump might force Xi to temper his enthusiasm for a state-run economy and include supporters of the markets and private enterprises that generate jobs and wealth. The congress will name a new Standing Committee, China’s inner circle of power, and other party leaders, not economic regulators.
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Jury Decides Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones Should Pay Nearly $1 Billion In Damages To Sandy Hook Families For His Lies About The School Massacre | CNN Business
Jury Decides Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones Should Pay Nearly $1 Billion In Damages To Sandy Hook Families For His Lies About The School Massacre | CNN Business https://digitalalaskanews.com/jury-decides-conspiracy-theorist-alex-jones-should-pay-nearly-1-billion-in-damages-to-sandy-hook-families-for-his-lies-about-the-school-massacre-cnn-business-2/
CNN Business —
Far-right talk show host Alex Jones should pay eight families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims and one first responder $965 million in compensatory damages, a Connecticut jury decided Wednesday, capping a wrenching weeks-long trial that put on display the serious harm inflicted by the conspiracy theorist’s lies.
With its punishing award, the decision could shrink or even doom Jones’ Infowars media empire, which has been at the center of major conspiracy theories dating back to former President George W. Bush’s administration and was embraced by President Donald Trump.
The plaintiffs and their attorneys were visibly emotional when the jury’s decision were read. The decision marks a key moment in the years-long process that began in 2018 when the families took legal action against Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, the parent of the fringe media organization Infowars.
Jones baselessly said again and again after the 2012 mass shooting, in which 26 people were killed, that the incident was staged, and that the families and first responders were “crisis actors.” The plaintiffs throughout the trial described in poignant terms how the lies had prompted unrelenting harassment against them and compounded the emotional agony of losing their loved ones.
Plaintiffs in the trial included family members of eight school students and employees, in addition to one FBI agent who responded to the scene. The three cases were all condensed into the single trial.
Jones was not in the courtroom for the verdict. He was streaming live when the jury’s decision was read in court, mocked the decision on his Infowars show and used it to fundraise.
It’s unclear when or how much of the money the plaintiffs will ultimately see. Jones has said that he will appeal the decision and during his Wednesday broadcast said that there “ain’t no money” to pay the massive figure the jury awarded the plaintiffs.
Christopher Mattei, an attorney for the plaintiffs, had urged jurors to award at least a half a billion dollars for having permanently mangled the lives of his clients. The figure, he said, would represent the more than 550 million online impressions Jones’ Sandy Hook lie allegedly received online.
“You may say that is astronomical. It is,” Mattei said. “It’s exactly what Alex Jones set himself up to do. That’s what he built. He built a lie machine that could push this stuff out. You reap what you sow.”
Mattei praised the jurors after the verdict was reached.
“The jury’s verdict is a testament to that courage, in a resounding affirmation that people of goodwill, dedicated to the truth, mindful of their responsibilities to their fellow citizens can come together to protect the innocent, to reveal lies masquerading as truth, and to set right a historic wrong,” Mattei told reporters outside the courthouse.
The decision in Connecticut comes two months after a separate jury in Texas determined that Jones and his company should award two Sandy Hook parents who sued in that state nearly $50 million. Later this month, the judge in that case will consider whether to reduce the punitive damages awarded under Texas law.
While Jones initially lied about the 2012 shooting, he later acknowledged that the massacre had occurred as he faced multiple lawsuits. But he failed to comply with court orders during the discovery process of the lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas, leading the families in each state to win default judgments against him.
During the latest trial, families of the Sandy Hook victims offered emotional testimony, telling the jury in haunting terms how Jones’ lies about the shooting had permanently altered their lives and compounded the pain of losing their loved ones.
Jones, who was cross-examined by the plaintiffs’ attorneys, but chose not to testify in his own defense as was originally planned, sought to portray himself as a victim of an elaborate “deep state” conspiracy against him.
In a particularly explosive moment in the trial, Jones tangled with an attorney for the plaintiffs, accusing him of “ambulance chasing,” before descending into an unhinged rant in court about “liberals.”
The judge overseeing the case admonished Jones several times during his testimony, warning him even at one point that he could be held in contempt of court if he violated her rules moving forward.
Jones has attacked the judicial process, even acknowledging in court that he had referred to the proceedings as those of a “kangaroo court” and called the judge a “tyrant.” He has already indicated that he plans to appeal.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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North Korea Says It Tested Two Nuclear-Capable Cruise Missiles
North Korea Says It Tested Two Nuclear-Capable Cruise Missiles https://digitalalaskanews.com/north-korea-says-it-tested-two-nuclear-capable-cruise-missiles/
State media says the tests were supervised by leader Kim Jong Un who has made acquiring tactical nuclear weapons a priority.
Published On 13 Oct 202213 Oct 2022
North Korea has test-fired a pair of long-range strategic cruise missiles, with leader Kim Jong Un lauding another successful display of the country’s tactical nuclear strike capability.
The test took place on Wednesday and was aimed at “enhancing the combat efficiency and might” of cruise missiles deployed to the Korean People’s Army “for the operation of tactical nukes,” state media KCNA reported on Thursday morning.
It was the latest in a series of weapons launches that have increased tension on the divided Korean peninsula and heightened fears Pyongyang might be about to conduct its first nuclear test in five years.
The cruise missiles travelled 2,000 km (1,240 miles) over the sea, according to KCNA, which said the projectiles hit their intended, but unspecified, targets.
Cruise missile launches are not usually as closely watched as those of ballistic missiles, but analysts say they are destabilising because in the event of conflict it would be unclear whether they were carrying a conventional or nuclear warhead [KCNA/KNS via AFP]
Stressing that the test was another clear warning to its “enemies,” Kim said the country “should continue to expand the operational sphere of the nuclear strategic armed forces to resolutely deter any crucial military crisis and war crisis at any time and completely take the initiative in it”, according to KCNA.
A US State Department spokesperson declined to comment on the launches, and said Washington remained focused on coordinating with its allies and partners to address the threats posed by North Korea.
On Monday, state media reported that Kim had supervised two weeks of guided nuclear tactical exercises, including the test of a new intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) that was launched over Japan as a protest against recent joint naval drills by South Korea and the United States that involved the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan.
Mistake to dismiss tests
North Korean state media once reported routinely on the country’s weapons testing but has stopped doing so in recent months.
Analysts said while the recent “deluge of propaganda” could not be trusted, the tests should not be ignored.
“North Korea’s cruise missiles, air force, and tactical nuclear devices are probably much less capable than propaganda suggests. But it would be a mistake to dismiss North Korea’s recent weapons testing spree as bluster or saber-rattling,” Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, wrote in emailed comments.
“Pyongyang’s military threats are a chronic and worsening problem for peace and stability in Asia that must not be ignored. Policymakers in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington should not allow domestic politics and other challenges such as Russia’s war in Ukraine to prevent them from increasing international coordination on military deterrence and economic sanctions.”
North Korea’s cruise missiles usually generate less interest than ballistic weapons because they are not explicitly banned under United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Kim made acquiring tactical nuclear weapons—- smaller, lighter and designed for battlefield use — a priority at a key party congress in January 2021 and first tested a “strategic” cruise missile in September of that year.
Analysts said it was the country’s first such weapon to have nuclear capability and was a worrying development because, in the event of a conflict, it might not be clear whether it was carrying a conventional or nuclear warhead.
The country revised its nuclear laws last month to allow pre-emptive strikes, with Kim declaring North Korea an “irreversible” nuclear power, effectively ending the possibility of negotiations over its arsenal.
President Joe Biden unveiled the latest update to the United States national security strategy on Wednesday but it contained only a single reference to North Korea.
Daniel Russel, the top US diplomat for East Asia under former President Barack Obama, said this was striking, “not only because it passes so quickly past a persistent and existential threat, but also because it frames the strategy as ‘seeking sustained diplomacy toward denuclearization,’ when North Korea has so convincingly demonstrated its utter rejection of negotiations”.
Source
:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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Stock Futures Are Up As Investors Await Inflation Data
Stock Futures Are Up As Investors Await Inflation Data https://digitalalaskanews.com/stock-futures-are-up-as-investors-await-inflation-data/
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Stock futures rose slightly early on Thursday as investors look ahead to inflation data and earnings in the coming days that may provide insight into the future health of the economy.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 32 points, or 0.11%. S&P 500 futures added 0.13%, while futures tied to the Nasdaq increased 0.07%.
The action follows a day of small ups and downs for the market as investors digested minutes from the September Federal Reserve meeting. The minutes showed the central bank expected to keep hiking interest rates until it sees receding inflation. But one comment made some think the Fed might instead slow the rate hikes, if not roll them back, if financial markets tumult continued.
The S&P 500 fell 0.33% to close at 3,577.03. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.09% to 10,417.10. The Dow Jones slipped 0.10%, or 28.34 points, to close at 29,210.85.
“Fed speakers similarly have, since the last meeting, been wedded to the message that their commitment remains solid, even in the face of global financial fault lines showing signs of strain,” said Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist at LPL Financial.
Early in the day, the September producer price index, a gauge of inflation that looks at final-demand wholesale prices, beat expectations. It rose 0.4% in September, more than Dow Jones’ consensus estimate of 0.2%.
Investors have more data to weigh Thursday as the consumer price index comes in the morning. Dow Jones’ consensus estimates show the CPI rose 0.3% in September, up from 0.1% in August. That would bring inflation’s annual pace to 8.1% from 8.3%.
Despite what she called a lukewarm response to PPI data and the Fed’s meeting minutes, Krosby said markets could be tested if the CPI print is higher than expected, particularly in bond yields.
Household names including Delta Air Lines, Walgreens and Domino’s Pizza will report earnings before the bell Thursday, coming as part of a week considered the start to a new corporate earnings season.
Weekly jobless claims data will also be released Thursday morning.
CNBC Pro: Is Meta a stock to buy or dodge? A bull and a bear face off
These are tumultuous times for Meta, with investors fleeing this year as it struggles with headwinds.
The stock in late September plunged to trade at its lowest since January 2019 – and since then has dropped even more.
Do big investors consider the Facebook parent a buy, now that its shares are so cheap, or is it one to avoid?
CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” spoke to Paul Meeks of Independent Solutions Wealth Management, and Jake Dollarhide of Longbow Asset Management, as they face off in making their bull-and-bear case for Meta.
Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Weizhen Tan
What to watch for Thursday: inflation data, earnings
Investors will be watching for data points Thursday that can help predict the future health of the markets and broader economy.
They will be watching for data from the consumer price index, which gauges inflation. Estimates expect the CPI will have risen 0.3% in September, up from 0.1% in August. If that happens, inflation’s annual pace would fall to 8.1% from 8.3%.
Investors will also be following corporate earnings from companies like Delta and Domino’s Pizza. Market observers say earnings are becoming more important to understanding how inflation and the surging dollar will impact the markets, as disappointing earnings could trigger uneasy investors to reduce exposure. This week marks the start of a new corporate earnings season.
CNBC Pro subscribers can see the whole weekly schedule here.
— Alex Harring
Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: Digital World, Victoria’s Secret and more
Stock futures open slightly up
Stock futures rose slightly at open as investors look to a data-filled latter half of the week.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 61 points, which translates to 0.21%.
Futures tied to the S&P 500 also increased 0.21%. Meanwhile, Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.18%
— Alex Harring
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