Hong Kong will display 2,500 panda sculptures to capitalize on a local bear craze

Thousands of giant panda sculptures will greet residents and tourists starting Saturday in Hong Kong, where enthusiasm for the bears has grown since two cubs were born in a local theme park. The 2,500 exhibits were showcased in a launch ceremony of PANDA GO! FEST HK, the city’s largest panda-themed exhibition, at Hong Kong’s airport on Monday. They will be publicly displayed at the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui, a popular shopping district, this weekend before setting their footprint at three other locations this month. One designated spot is Ocean Park, home to the twin cubs, their parents and two other pandas gifted by Beijing this year. The design of six of the sculptures, made of recycled rubber barrels and resins among other materials, was inspired by these bears. The cubs — whose birth in August made their mother Ying Ying the world’s oldest first-time panda mom — may meet visitors as early as February. The panda sculptures will be installed at various sites in Hong Kong. Chan Long Hei/AP In a separate media preview event on Monday, the new pair of Beijing-gifted pandas, An An and Ke Ke, who arrived in September, appeared relaxed in their new home at Ocean Park. An An enjoyed eating bamboo in front of the cameras and Ke Ke climbed on an installation. They are set to meet the public on Sunday. The displays reflect Hong Kong’s use of pandas to boost its economy as the Chinese financial hub works to regain its position as one of Asia’s top tourism destinations. Pandas are considered China’s unofficial national mascot. The country’s giant panda loan program with overseas zoos has long been seen as a tool of Beijing’s soft-power diplomacy. Hong Kong’s tourism industry representatives are upbeat about the potential impact of housing six pandas, hoping to boost visitor numbers even though caring for pandas in captivity is expensive. Officials have encouraged businesses to capitalize on the popularity of the bears to seize opportunities in what some lawmakers have dubbed the “panda economy.” The organizer of the exhibitions also invited some renowned figures, including musician Pharrell Williams, to create special-edition panda designs. Most of these special sculptures will be auctioned online for charity and the proceeds will be donated to Ocean Park to support giant panda conversation efforts. Pandas pictured at Monday’s event. Chan Long Hei/AP Ying Ying and the twin cubs’ father, Le Le, are the second pair of pandas gifted by Beijing to Hong Kong since the former British colony returned to China’s rule in 1997. The first pair were An An and Jia Jia who arrived in 1999. Jia Jia, who died at 38 in 2016, is the world’s oldest-ever panda to have lived in captivity. The average lifespan for a panda in the wild is 14 to 20 years, while in captivity it’s up to 30 years, according to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature.

Hong Kong will display 2,500 panda sculptures to capitalize on a local bear craze Read More »

‘Unlimited’ enemy troops, no sleep: Ukrainian soldiers fight to hold on to Russia’s Kursk region

The dawn assault inside Russia’s Kursk region never even got to a gunfight, yet betrayed the intensity of the battle in Kremlin territory. Five Russians edged forward in the grey Sunday dawn but, as thermal drone imagery shows, were killed or wounded by a drone as they tried to hide in the treeline. “I have this impression that (the Russians) have unlimited people,” said Oleksandr, a unit commander with the 225th assault battalion, describing the clash from a cafe in the Ukrainian city of Sumy, 11 hours later. “They send groups, and almost no one remains alive. And the next day, the groups go again. The next Russians, it seems, do not know what happened to the previous Russians. They go there, into the unknown. No one tells them anything about it, and no one comes back.” Oleksandr and two colleagues with whom he is sitting are hard of hearing from the constant shelling. They provide a rare insight into the nearly four-month-long Ukrainian occupation of Kursk. The August invasion marked a rare tactical success and strategic gain for Kyiv, although the use of significant manpower and armor in the assault has led to criticism that shortages created by the invasion contributed to Russia’s advance across the Donbas eastern front. Advocates of the Kursk operation suggest it provided Kyiv with vital leverage for any future peace talks – perhaps initiated by US President-elect Donald Trump – which means Ukraine needs to retain a foothold in the area into spring at the least. A funeral ceremony in Irpin, Ukraine, is held last month for Serhii Solovyov, a soldier who died during the Kursk offensive. Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Oleksandr expressed confidence his unit could hold on, but less certainty as to why. “I don’t know what the goal really is,” he said. “Maybe we should walk around here for four months and turn around and leave, for example… If the goal is to hold on to it until a certain point, we will.” Asked what his message for Trump would be, Oleksandr demanded the West uphold the security guarantees it gave Ukraine in return for Kyiv giving up its nuclear weapons, in a 1994 treaty known as the Budapest Memorandum, in which Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States gave Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan assurances for giving up their Soviet-era nuclear weapons. “You took away our nuclear weapons? You promised us your roof,” Oleksandr said, using a slang word for protection. “Keep your word. We’re being slaughtered, and you’re still trying to play games, to defend your interests. You had to give everything you could to end this war in two days. Who will believe the words of the US or England, who are pissing themselves in front of Russia? Pardon my English,” he said laughing, in explanation of his profanity. Recent Russian assaults in his area of Kursk have proven as ineffective as costly, he said. Separately, Ukrainian officials have admitted that 40% of the territory they took in the late summer has since been reclaimed by the Russians. Oleksandr’s unit has not slept for three days, he said, or left the frontline for eight months, and has been involved in ferocious combat in the Ukrainian cities of Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar. He said the Russian troops Ukrainians faced in Kursk were a mixture of well-trained paratroopers from the 76th Brigade, but also less organised Chechens, and African mercenaries. But he has seen no sign of the 12,000 North Korean troops that, according to the Pentagon, have been sent to Kursk. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky also told the Japanese Kyodo news agency Sunday that some North Koreans had been killed by Ukrainian forces and that they would ultimately be used as “cannon fodder” by the Kremlin. “When we catch them or see a body,” Oleksandr said, “then I’ll know for sure that they’re here.” Three weeks earlier, his unit had faced an assault from 40 armored vehicles and about 300 infantry, he said. His drone commander, callsign “JS” for Java Script, said the unit killed 50 Russians that day. “The vehicles that managed to get through unloaded the infantry,” JS recounted, “then we finished off the infantry. And it went like this for nearly 24 hours, no sleep, and the next day we finished off those who managed to hide from the drone-bombing on the first day.”

‘Unlimited’ enemy troops, no sleep: Ukrainian soldiers fight to hold on to Russia’s Kursk region Read More »

Alex Consani becomes first transgender Model of the Year

American model Alex Consani has become the first transgender woman to win Model of the Year, following a string of high-profile runway appearances for labels like Chanel, Stella McCartney and Victoria’s Secret. The in-demand 21-year-old, who is known for her distinctive bleached hair and eyebrows, claimed the title at the 2024 Fashion Awards in London on Monday evening. In her acceptance speech, Consani told a star-studded audience at the Royal Albert Hall that her victory marked a “big step in the right direction.” “Now, more than ever, it’s an important conversation that should be had about how to truly support and uplift one another within this industry, especially those who have been made to feel insignificant,” she added, to cheers from the crowd, after collecting her trophy from model and body activist Ashley Graham and “Baby Reindeer” star Nava Mau. “Because change is more than possible — it’s needed.” Consani takes the stage at the Royal Albert Hall in London to accept the award for Model of the Year. Jeff Spicer/Getty Images Having signed with IMG Models (an agency representing supermodels including Claudia Schiffer, Hailey Bieber and the Hadid sisters) in 2019, Consani rose to prominence through TikTok, where she now boasts almost 4 million followers. She made her catwalk debut for Tom Ford in 2021 and later walked for top labels such as Alexander McQueen and Versace. In October, Consani and Valentina Sampaio made history by becoming the first trans models to appear on the runway at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Wearing a ripped Union Flag dress by Turkish-British designer Dilara Findikoglu, California-born Consani used her acceptance speech to honor the Black transgender women — including fellow models Connie Fleming and Aaron Rose Philip — who “really fought for the space … that allowed me to flourish today.” She also paid tribute to her parents for supporting her modeling aspirations. Related articleCan a troubled Victoria’s Secret successfully write its next chapter? It’s certainly pulling out all the stops Recognizing the “the global impact” of someone who has “dominated the industry” in the last 12 months, the prestigious Model of the Year prize combines the opinion of an industry panel with the result of a public vote, according to award organizers the British Fashion Council. Black trans model Kai-Isaiah Jamal was among the nominees for last year’s award, which was ultimately won by plus-size model Paloma Elsesser. Elsewhere at Monday’s ceremony, Jonathan Anderson, creative director of Loewe and founder of JW Anderson, won the coveted Designer of the Year award for the second consecutive year. And Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour presented Tom Ford with the Outstanding Achievement Award. Rihanna and A$AP Rocky, who took home the Cultural Innovator Award, were among the stars in attendance. Samir Hussein/WireImage/Getty Images Featuring performances from Blondie singer Debbie Harry and Afrobeats star Wizkid, the glitzy ceremony saw major fashion industry figures rub shoulders with the stars of entertainment, music and sport, including Rita Ora and Venus Williams. Also in attendance (and wearing an eye-catching blue furry hat) was Rihanna, whose partner A$AP Rocky took home the Cultural Innovator Award. Categories for the best British menswear and womenswear designers were meanwhile awarded to Grace Wales Bonner and Simone Rocha, respectively. Rocha’s acceptance speech was among several political moments, as she took the stage with a call to “free Palestine.” Earlier in the evening, an animal rights demonstrator stormed the red carpet to protest the fashion industry’s use of feathers — just days after London Fashion Week’s announced that it will become the first of the “big four” fashion weeks to ban exotic animal skins on its runways.

Alex Consani becomes first transgender Model of the Year Read More »

South Korean president declares martial law

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in an unannounced late-night TV address, accusing the country’s main opposition party of sympathizing with North Korea and anti-state activities. Yoon did not say what measures would be taken. He cited a motion by the opposition Democratic Party, which has a majority in parliament, to impeach top prosecutors and reject a government budget proposal. “To safeguard a liberal South Korea from the threats posed by North Korea’s communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements… I hereby declare emergency martial law,” Yoon said in a live televised address to the nation.

South Korean president declares martial law Read More »

China hits out at latest US effort to block Beijing’s access to chip technology

  The Chinese government has slammed America’s introduction of fresh export controls on US-made semiconductors that Washington fears Beijing could use to make the next generation of weapons and artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The new measures, unveiled by the outgoing Biden administration, have raised the political temperature between the world’s top two economies ahead of the imminent inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made self-sufficiency a major pillar of his economic strategy to make China a tech superpower. On Monday, the US Commerce Ministry announced curbs on the sale of two dozen types of semiconductor-making equipment and restrictions on numerous Chinese companies from accessing American technology. The goal of the new controls, US Commerce Ministry officials said, was to slow China’s development of advanced AI tools that can be used in war and to undercut the country’s homegrown semiconductor industry, which threatens the national security of the US and its allies. China’s Commerce Ministry condemned the move, accusing the US of “abuse” of export controls and posing “a significant threat” to the stability of global industrial and supply chains. “The US preaches one thing while practicing another, excessively broadening the concept of national security, abusing export control measures, and engaging in unilateral bullying actions. China firmly opposes such actions,” the ministry said in a Monday statement. A day later, it banned outright the sale of a number of materials crucial for the production of semiconductors and electric vehicle batteries to the US. The export of gallium, germanium, antimony and other “super hard” materials will not be permitted because they may be used for military purposes, according to the ministry. China had restricted the sale of some of these materials last year, as the tech rivalry between the two sides escalated. However, there was previously an option for companies to apply for special permits to export to the US, a loophole that now appears to be closed. The race for an edge in military technology has shaped US-China relations amid growing US concerns about a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in the coming years. China’s ruling Communist Party, which claims the self-ruled democratic island as its own territory despite never having controlled it, has adopted an increasingly aggressive stance toward Taiwan in recent years. ‘Strongest ever’ controls Senior US officials have also accused China of outright stealing American-made AI software, which Beijing denies. “They’re the strongest controls ever enacted by the US to degrade the PRC’s ability to make the most advanced chips that they’re using in their military modernization,” Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told reporters Sunday, using the acronym for the country’s official name, the People’s Republic of China. The new rules include restrictions on the sale of of high bandwidth memory chips, which are critical for high-end applications such as generative AI training, plus fresh software and technology controls. Monday’s announcement is the third round of export restrictions imposed on Beijing by the Biden administration in as many years. Last October, the Commerce Ministry reduced the types of semiconductors that American companies can sell to China, citing the desire to close loopholes in regulations announced in 2022. In September, the Commerce Ministry separately proposed a ban on the sale or import of smart vehicles that use specific Chinese or Russian technology, citing security concerns. The incoming Trump administration has also talked tough on China, including by threatening tariffs. For its part, China is intensifying its goal to dominate advanced technologies of the future. In May, Beijing announced plans to set up its largest-ever semiconductor state investment fund worth $47.5 billion. With investments from six of the country’s largest state-owned banks, including ICBC and China Construction Bank, the fund underscores Xi’s push to bolster China’s position as a tech giant.

China hits out at latest US effort to block Beijing’s access to chip technology Read More »

Delta Air Lines refused to transport stowaway to the US, Paris airport official says

Delta Air Lines will not fly the Russian woman who stowed away on a flight to Paris last week back to New York, a Paris airport official told CNN. She was due to leave France on a flight at 2:30 p.m. local time (8:30 a.m. ET) Tuesday, a Paris airport official told CNN. The woman was onboard the plane when Delta refused to fly her, according to the official. “We are going to try to send her back again with a French escort,” the official said. CNN has reached out to Delta Air Lines for comment. The 57-year-old woman got past multiple security checkpoints at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and boarded a plane to Paris last week. She was scheduled to be on a flight to the US on Saturday afternoon but French authorities removed her from the aircraft after she started screaming, according to an official. A man who was on the plane told CNN that the woman was sitting across the aisle from him and his family. “She kept on saying ‘I do not want to go back to the USA. Only a judge can make me go back to the USA,’” Gary Treichler said. The woman was expected to be accompanied by six US marshals on Tuesday’s flight back to New York, authorities said. Authorities in the US are continuing to investigate how the woman sneaked onto the initial Delta flight without a ticket. Inspectors from the Transportation Security Administration are preparing a civil case against the stowaway after reviewing airport security video from inside John F. Kennedy International Airport, agency spokesperson Alexa Lopez told CNN. “The TSA will open civil cases against passengers when there’s evidence that procedures may have been violated,” Lopez said. The TSA cannot bring criminal charges, though it can refer them to the Justice Department. Delta has not said how the woman was able to board the plane once she made it past the TSA checkpoint. The airline said it “is conducting an exhaustive investigation of what may have occurred,” but declined further comment.

Delta Air Lines refused to transport stowaway to the US, Paris airport official says Read More »

Gotham Awards 2024: Zendaya honors mom, while Nicole Kidman and Pamela Anderson bring ’90s nostalgia

The stars were out Monday night for this year’s Gotham Awards, held at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. The event “honors visionary talent in front of and behind the camera, expands the audience for groundbreaking film and television, and supports the year-round work of the not-for-profit The Gotham Film & Media Institute,” according to the organization’s site. Zendaya received the Spotlight Tribute for her role in the film “Challengers,” and she used the moment to honor her mother, Claire Stoermer. “To my mom,” the 28-year-old actress said. “My mom’s here tonight. Shoutout mom; she’s embarrassed.” Nicole Kidman was nominated for her work in the erotic thriller “Babygirl” in which she plays a married executive who embarks on an affair with a younger intern. Kidman arrived in a vintage Dolce & Gabbana gown from 1998, while Pamela Anderson hit the red carpet with a makeup-free face. Nominated for her role in “The Last Showgirl,” Anderson has made recent headlines for her lack of glam, she told People she’s not against makeup. “I love to wear makeup too sometimes,” she said. “It has a time and a place. I just feel in my personal life, it just didn’t really make sense.” Timothée Chalamet and James Mangold received the Visionary Tribute for their collaboration on “A Complete Unknown,” the upcoming Bob Dylan biopic. Angelina Jolie received the Performer Tribute for her rendition of the legendary opera singer Maria Callas in Pablo Larrain’s film “Maria.” Franklin Leonard and his company, the Black List, the platform dedicated to nurturing written storytelling and empowering writers to maximize their professional potential, received The Gotham Anniversary Tribute. Denis Villeneuve received The Gotham Director Tribute for his remarkable world-building and storytelling prowess in “Dune: Part Two.” The cast of “The Piano Lesson,” which includes Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Danielle Deadwyler, Michael Potts, Corey Hawkins, and Erykah Badu, received the Ensemble Tribute “for their captivating chemistry and artistry.” The other winners of the night include the following: Best Feature – “A Different Man” Best International Feature – “All We Imagine as Light” Best Documentary Feature – “No Other Land” Best Director – RaMell Ross for “Nickel Boys” Best Screenplay – Azazel Jacobs for “His Three Daughters” Breakthrough Director Gotham – Vera Drew for “The People’s Joker” Outstanding Lead Performance – Colman Domingo in “Sing Sing” Outstanding Supporting Performance – Clarence Maclin in “Sing Sing” Breakthrough Performer – Brandon Wilson in “Nickel Boys”

Gotham Awards 2024: Zendaya honors mom, while Nicole Kidman and Pamela Anderson bring ’90s nostalgia Read More »

Jaguar reveals first concept car after controversial rebrand

British luxury automaker Jaguar has revealed its Type 00 concept car, the first glimpse of a new electric vehicle following a controversial rebrand that has divided opinion. The manufacturer said it was “introducing an unmistakable, unexpected and dramatic physical manifestation of Jaguar, as the brand continues its transformation,” in a statement published Tuesday after the car was revealed at Miami Art Week. The Type 00 has a long bonnet (a hood in US English) and a fastback profile, as well as 23-inch alloy wheels. It is presented in two colors: Miami Pink and London Blue. “The former reflects the iconic Art Deco surroundings of its reveal, the latter references its British heritage,” said Jaguar in the release. The concept has provoked some strong reactions online. Jaguar Land Rover While the Type 00 is a concept and will therefore never enter production, it has divided opinion online. One commenter on X said the car “looks sleek,” but another said that “00 is how many you’ll sell. Beyond ugly.” Jaguar said it will become an electric-only brand focused on luxury vehicles, but the evolution goes further than that. “This transition extends beyond the products Jaguar designs and engineers; it represents a reimagination of the entire brand,” said the automaker. This new brand identity also stoked controversy when it was revealed in November. The Type 00 pictured in London Blue (left) and Miami Pink (right). Jaguar Land Rover Under the tagline “copy nothing,” Jaguar published a promotional video featuring a diverse cast of models posing and moving through an otherworldly landscape, which drew the ire of traditionalists. “Umm where are the cars in this ad? Is this for fashion?,” wrote one commenter on X. The 102-year-old luxury automaker is replacing its former logo, resplendent in all capital letters, with a new one that is supposed to be a “powerful celebration of modernism,” the company announced on November 18. Other changes to Jaguar’s branding include a redesigned pouncing cat logo, called the “Leaper,” and a new monogram that incorporates the “J” and “R” in the brand name. Car and Driver reports that the Leaper, which has adorned its cars for several decades, is being eliminated in favor of the badge. “This is a reimagining that recaptures the essence of Jaguar, returning it to the values that once made it so loved, but making it relevant for a contemporary audience,” said Gerry McGovern, Jaguar Land Rover’s chief creative officer, in a press release last month. The first production car under Jaguar’s new direction will be a four-door electric grand tourer, which will be built in the UK. It will be revealed in late 2025, said the automaker. Jaguar is also planning to open a number of brand stores around the world, the first of which will open in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.

Jaguar reveals first concept car after controversial rebrand Read More »

Ex-boyfriend sentenced to life in prison in femicide case that gripped Italy

A judge in Italy has sentenced a 23-year-old man to life in prison for the stabbing murder of his former girlfriend, a heinous act of femicide that has put violence against women in the spotlight in this country. Filippo Turetta who admitted to murdering Giulia Cecchettin, 22, in November 2023 a week before she was due to graduate from the University of Padua, was found guilty Tuesday with extenuating factors in a court in Venice of murder, illegal possession of weapons, kidnapping and concealment of a corpse. He was also ordered to pay financial damages to the victim’s family in addition to covering their legal fees. In the Italian criminal justice system, verdicts and sentencing are generally ruled on by either a panel of judges or judges and lay jurors at the same time. After he murdered her, he said he stuffed her body into garbage bags and dumped her in a ravine and went on the run. He was arrested in Germany 10 days after Cecchettin disappeared. Turetta, who was present in court, was emotionless, staring at the desk in front of him and flanked by his lawyers when the verdict was read. Cecchettin’s father Gino, who was also in the courtroom, did not look at the killer of his daughter. Cecchettin’s mother died from an illness in 2022. After the verdict, Gino Ceccettin said after the verdict that he felt strange. “I’m no more relieved or sad than I was before the verdict,” he said. “As a father, nothing has changed.” The chief prosecutor Andrea Petroni asked for a life sentence, which is no more than 30 years in Italy, based on aggravating circumstances including how Turetta had procured knives, tape, a shovel, black garbage bags, ropes and a wet sock to stifle Cecchettin’s screams. He kept the items in his car for several days before he lured his former girlfriend into his car on a false promise that he would stop stalking her and that they could just be friends, he told the court. Turetta testified in his 10-week trial, where he admitted to killing her and hiding her body. He admitted writing a plan that included a list of what he needed to do it, and he hypothesized how he would carry out the murder but insisted he didn’t intend to do so. “I was angry, I had many thoughts, I felt resentment that we had argued again, that it was a terrible period, that I wanted to get back together and so … I don’t know,” he testified. “In a way it made me feel good to write this list to vent, to hypothesize this list that calmed me, to think that things could change. It was as if I didn’t have to define it yet, but I had thrown it down.” Debate on violence Turetta’s lawyer Giovanni Caruso argued that his client should not be given an “inhumane and degrading” life sentence. “He is not Pablo Escobar,” Caruso told the court, referring to the notorious Colombian drugs lord who was killed in 1993. The court also heard a list Cecchettin wrote entitled “15 reasons I should leave Filippo” that her family found. Among them, “He complained when I put fewer hearts than usual [in messages]” and “He has strange ideas about taking justice into one’s own hands for betrayals, torture, stuff like that.” She also wrote, “He needs to know everything, even what you say about him to your friends and the psychologist.” The case has stirred the debate on violence against women, as well as what is largely seen as a failure to prevent the scourge. One woman is killed by a boyfriend, husband or ex-partner every three days in Italy, according to government statistics. More than 106 women were killed in the year since Cecchetin’s murder. The youngest was a 13-year-old girl allegedly pushed off a balcony by her 15-year-old boyfriend in early November. Giulia Cecchettin was the 105th victim of 2023. Cecchetin’s sister Elena and father have launched a campaign to combat violence called the Giulia Cecchettin Foundation and blamed the government under Giorgia Meloni for failing to do enough beyond producing a brochure to outline the signs of an abusive relationship. Members of Meloni’s government have insisted that the patriarchy is no longer a problem in Italy. “Giulia was killed by a respectable, white Italian man,” Elena Cecchetin wrote on social media, adding, “What is the government doing to prevent violence?”

Ex-boyfriend sentenced to life in prison in femicide case that gripped Italy Read More »

South Korea president declares emergency martial law

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in an unannounced late-night TV address Tuesday, accusing the country’s main opposition party of sympathizing with North Korea and of anti-state activities. Yoon did not say what specific measures would be taken. He cited a motion by the opposition Democratic Party, which has a majority in parliament, to impeach top prosecutors and reject a government budget proposal. Yoon labeled the opposition’s actions as “clear anti-state behavior aimed at inciting rebellion.” He further claimed these acts have “paralyzed state affairs and turned the National Assembly into a den of criminals.” He describing martial law as a necessary measure to eradicate these “shameless pro-North anti-state forces.” He justified the decision as essential to protect the freedoms and safety of the people, ensure the country’s sustainability, and pass on a stable nation to future generations. The parliament speaker is traveling to parliament and plans to convene a session, according to local broadcaster YTN TV. Yonhap news agency reported though that the entrance to parliament is blocked and lawmakers are unable to enter. Yoon accused the opposition of turning the nation into a “drug haven” and creating a state of disorder detrimental to public safety and livelihood. He also said the Democratic Party was attempting to overthrow the liberal democratic system, declaring, “The National Assembly has become a monster undermining liberal democracy, and the nation is in a precarious state, teetering on the edge of collapse.” He assured the public, “We will eliminate the anti-state forces and restore the country to normalcy as quickly as possible.” While acknowledging that martial law might cause some inconvenience, he promised efforts to minimize its impact on the public.

South Korea president declares emergency martial law Read More »

St Vincent PM says Caribbean unity is needed now more than ever

ROSEAU, Dominica (CMC) – St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves is calling for greater unity among member states of the Caribbean, noting that a united region is needed to deal with the mounting global challenges. Delivering the annual Dame Eugenia Charles Memorial Lecture here on Monday night, Gonsalves, one of the region’s longest serving head of government, spoke on the topic “Our Caribbean Civilization and its Political Prospects”. “The necessity and desirability for an independent Caribbean united is more urgent than ever,” he told the audience, saying “I know there are problems in getting there, but we have to cooperate and do things more together. “As Prime Minister, you have so many domestic challenges, but you really can’t deal with the serious ones unless you work together across the Caribbean.” He said issues such as climate change, climate financing, the issue of war and peace and the ongoing war in Ukraine are matters where the region needs a united position. Gonsalves said on Monday he has sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Joe Biden, the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy as well as the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio  Guterres “making a plea for peace” and that he intends to send the letter to every head of state in the world. Gonsalves said with the threat of nuclear weapons being used, it is important “for all of us to be in solidarity on certain questions even when we disagree with each other politically. “There are some things which we must at least, for the good of the nation, and for our civilization regionally, work together,” he added. During the lecture, Gonsalves defended his government’s decision to have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province even though most of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries enjoy diplomatic status with Beijing rather than Taipei. Asked by a member of the audience whether he believes China’s influence in the Caribbean is akin to it recolonizing the region, Gonsalves replied that within the seven-member Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), the governments of St Lucia, St Kitts-Nevis and St Vincent and the Grenadines envy diplomatic stats with Taiwan. “The other country in the region that has diplomatic relations with Taiwan is Haiti. The mainland Chinese from time to time they send their emissaries directly and indirectly for me to change the relations. ‘We are not going to do so. Let me make it plain. I have nothing, I don’t say anything against mainland China. Our position is simple, there is one Chinese civilization of which you can have more than one legitimate political organizers of state.” He said Taiwan is part of mainland China for centuries and in 1949 the defeated Chinese nationalists fled to the island. “They claimed that they represented the whole of China, more and more that became threadbare because you can’t have a small island representing the whole of China,” Gonsalves said, adding that “for all practical purposes two entities emerged. “You cannot tell me that in order for me to have diplomatic relations with you, I have to break diplomatic relations with Taiwan. You can’t dictate to me. We have a relationship (and) anytime you say that I  can have relations with you while having with Taiwan, tomorrow morning I am ready to have relations with you. “But we view that in our interest to maintain these relations,” Gonsalves said, highlighting the efforts his administration has been making over the years to get Taiwan accepted in the major global forums. “What I want to see across the Taiwan Straits there be peace because if you think Ukraine is bad, if war breaks out across the Taiwan Straits and I say it all the time some time, I don’t know if it is going to 200, 300 years from now, 50 years from now, 30 years from now, Taiwan and mainland China will work out their problems without anything to do with me,” Gonsalves said. “They have a different view of time than we have,” he said, telling the audience “do not expect me to pick a fight with a country with 1.4 billion people”.

St Vincent PM says Caribbean unity is needed now more than ever Read More »

PNP bats for inclusion on International Day for Persons with Disabilities

KINGSTON, Jamaica –As Jamaica joins the world in commemorating International Day for Persons with Disabilities, the People’s National Party (PNP) says it stands in solidarity with individuals living with disabilities and to champion the theme, “Inclusion in Action: Building Accessible Communities.” The PNP in a news release Tuesday said the theme serves as a timely reminder of the pressing need for concrete actions to create a society where everyone, regardless of ability, has equal opportunities to thrive. Shadow Minister of Gender Affairs, Persons with Disabilities & Inclusion, Denise Daley, emphasised the importance of moving beyond token gestures and addressing systemic barriers that continue to marginalize persons with disabilities. “We cannot speak of progress as a nation if we are leaving behind individuals with disabilities,” Daley stated. “Accessibility must become a cornerstone of our development agenda. From creating inclusive learning environments to ensuring public spaces, transportation, and technology are accessible, we must implement policies that reflect the value of every Jamaican.” Despite past efforts, significant gaps remain in addressing the needs of persons with disabilities, the PNP said. Access to quality education, gainful employment, affordable healthcare, and equitable participation in society are areas that require immediate and sustained attention, the party continued. The PNP said it recognizes these challenges and is committed to advancing comprehensive policies that foster inclusion and protect the rights of all citizens. Daley called for increased collaboration among government agencies, the private sector, and civil society to drive meaningful change. “Inclusion is not a task for one entity—it requires a collective effort. We urge all Jamaicans to join in creating communities that reflect dignity, respect, and opportunity for everyone,” Daley said. “As we reflect on this year’s theme, let us move beyond conversations and commit to measurable actions that build accessible communities,” she added. “An inclusive Jamaica is not only a fairer Jamaica; it is a stronger and more united nation.” The PNP said it remains steadfast in its mission to create a Jamaica where inclusion is not just an aspiration but a lived reality for all.

PNP bats for inclusion on International Day for Persons with Disabilities Read More »

Deadline extended for $20,000 Gov’t tax return submission

KINGSTON, Jamaica – The Tax Administration of Jamaica (TAJ) has extended the deadline for the submission of new applications for the Government of Jamaica’s Reverse Income Tax Credit (RITC) from December 2 to December 13, 2024, as the eligibility period for the filing of returns has been adjusted from August 31 to October 15, 2024. The RITC allows residents who earned below $3,000,000 in 2023 to apply for a one-time tax return of $20,000. With the extension, self-employed individuals, Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) employed individuals and domestic workers filing a Stamp Card, now have until December 13 to apply for the RITC, once they had completed their required tax filings and/or payments by October 15, 2024. The TAJ says the extension is primarily to facilitate employers who filed their Employer’s Annual Return (S04) after the previous August 31, 2024 date but by the extended October 15, 2024 date, now allowing additional employees who earned below $3 million in the year 2023 to benefit. Additionally, individuals who are National Insurance Scheme (NIS) stamp card holders, and had updated their Taxpayer Registration Number (TRN) information with the NIS, are being advised that their information has now been updated in the supplemental database. This means that Stamp Card holders who had previously submitted applications, may now do so again. Similarly, other individuals who have been advised by TAJ to reapply, due to an earlier challenge that has been rectified, may also reapply. Such individuals will have until December 31, 2024 to resubmit their applications. The TAJ says so far, 290,912 individuals have benefitted from the government’s tax give back, with total payments of $5.8 billion disbursed up to the end of November. A further 38,263 applications are currently at various stages of the application process.

Deadline extended for $20,000 Gov’t tax return submission Read More »

JCF, Indecom probe cop’s alleged involvement in beating at Rebel’s party

KINGSTON, Jamaica – The Police High Command launched an investigation into an online video showing a beating during entertainer Rebel’s birthday party over the weekend, allegedly involving an off-duty cop. The matter is now in the hands of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) announced in a statement Monday. “The High Command only became aware of this incident and the reported connection to a member after it was raised publicly by a talk show host. Upon learning of the incident, the High Command immediately launched an internal investigation,” the JCF said, adding “However, the matter has since become the subject of an independent investigation by INDECOM, which is responsible for investigating allegations of police misconduct.” The JCF says it will fully cooperate with INDECOM’s investigation into the incident. On Sunday, music executive Romeich Major publicly apologized to the reported victims of the beating, TikTokers TJ and Moya. Major had come under public scrutiny for allegedly being linked to the beating, videos of which have since gone viral on social media. The High Command rejected any allegations of delays in its response to the matter and reminded the public it permits members to engage in private service, commonly referred to as “extra work,” under strict guidelines outlined in Force Orders. “Private Service arrangements must adhere to established rules regarding eligibility, prohibited activities, and operational standards. The policy ensures that such engagements are conducted transparently, ethically, and without conflict of interest. While extra work is allowed, all officers are required to uphold the highest professional standards at all times, whether on-duty or off-duty,” the police said. Prior to INDECOM opening an investigation the police had been probing whether these standards had been breached. “Any misconduct or breach of policy is treated with the utmost seriousness. We assure the public that any member found in breach of JCF policies or the law will be held accountable,” the High Command stressed.

JCF, Indecom probe cop’s alleged involvement in beating at Rebel’s party Read More »

Off To The Races

On December 7, the Mouttet Mile will unfold at the Caymanas Park. The largest horse-racing purse in the Caribbean, at US$250,000, is set to attract hundreds of patrons who will come all decked out in Western wear. If you haven’t gotten a chance to put your outfit together for this Wild West showcase, Tuesday Style Fashion (TSF) is here to help! Western wear is all about simplicity and practicality. When assembling your outfit, remember that less is often more. Avoid going overboard with excessive detailing and too many embellishments. Stick to classic pieces that serve a functional purpose and blend well together. TSF has a checklist that will guide you through your dressing and shopping experience. We will help you channel your inner cowboy and show off your best Western style. Saddle up and let’s hit the trail! First things first — The cornerstone of any authentic cowboy wardrobe is a pair of leather boots. If you want to dress like a cowboy, you’ve got to get yourself a classic pair. The key to finding the perfect pair is to focus on quality leather and a comfortable fit. Next up, button-down shirts — Button-down shirts are a must-have in any cowboy’s closet. Flannel shirts with pearl snaps or plain white button-up shirts will complement your cowboy boots. Some shirts come with intricate embroidery or flap pockets, and many feature a distinctive Western style. Western shirts are suitable to wear during all seasons. The trick is to avoid too much decorative piping or flashy designs. Keep it simple and versatile, and you’ll be able to mix and match with ease.   The right denim — Now let’s talk jeans. Levi’s and Wranglers are the tried-and-true classics that have stood the test of time. Whatever the denim brand it must meet one crucial criterion: fitting over your boots. You don’t want jeans that are too tight at the ankles or ride up too much when you sit down.   Stetson — Don’t forget your hat No cowboy look is complete without the perfect hat. Choosing a hat that suits your face shape and personality is essential. The gambler style, with its flat brim and flat crown, is iconic thanks to Clint Eastwood in the “Dirty Harry“ movies.   Cowboys Can Accessories Too Who says cowboys can’t accessorize? Bolo ties, neckerchiefs, and bold belt buckles can add a touch of flair to your outfit. Each of these accessories serves a purpose and adds to the overall aesthetic without overwhelming the look.   Cowboys care about comfort, opt for styles that feel comfortable and look great, making sure they’re durable enough to handle whatever the day throws your way.   Stick to classic pieces that serve a functional purpose and blend well together. This approach not only looks authentic but also ensures you’re ready for whatever the day brings. Choose neutral colours for your shirts so that they’ll always match your outfits. Don’t be afraid to reach for a white T-shirt — you can’t go wrong with a classic!

Off To The Races Read More »

‘SO MUCH TO DO’

Rosen Baugh to run for Netball Jamaica presidency, shares vision for programme Senior netball administrator Karen Rosen Baugh has indicated that she will be putting herself up for the presidency of Netball Jamaica (NJ) at next month’s annual general meeting (AGM). Originally scheduled for December 14, the AGM was postponed to January due to the unavailability of the organisation’s audited financial statements. The last AGM was held in 2021, with all NJ positions, including the presidency and directorship roles, up for re-election in the upcoming meeting. President Tricia Robinson, now serving her second term, will also be eligible for re-election. Rosen Baugh, who has been NJ’s director of marketing and sponsorship since 2021, is widely regarded in the netball community as a strong contender for the position. She explained to the Jamaica Observer that her decision to run was made after careful consideration and consultation with family and key stakeholders in the sport. “I have thought long and hard about this and consulted with my family, friends, and colleagues,” she said. “I have received many calls encouraging me to run, but for a while, I was undecided as my desire has always been just to quietly serve and contribute as best as I can to the success of the sport and the support for these awesome Sunshine Girls. “Our stakeholders rightly demand that we be accountable and transparent, and that is my mantra as well.” Rosen Baugh expressed her commitment to working closely with all stakeholders to ensure significant global growth for the sport and for the Sunshine Girls to rise to become the number one team in the world. “I think I have more to offer to the sport,” she said. “We need a reset in certain areas, especially governance, communication, and national development of the sport. The proper marketing and support of the team is a huge need and they deserve so much more. “We want them to be in a well-supported elite environment, and for them and the coaches to be properly remunerated when they represent the country. The rest of the programme will be impacted by their success.” Rosen Baugh says she intends to strengthen grassroots development and ensure that local coaches and umpires receive the necessary support to become internationally certified. “Development opportunities for our clubs, coaches, and umpires is also a big priority if we are to sustain our progress and properly feed the national programme,” she said. “There is so much to do, so the team leading the charge is very important.” Baugh previously served on the NJ board from 2012 to 2016, primarily during the presidency of Marva Bernard. Robinson has remained reserved about whether she will seek re-election. Several calls to her mobile phone Monday for clarity on her plans went unanswered.

‘SO MUCH TO DO’ Read More »

West Indies stay optimistic despite trailing by 211

DESPITE trailing by 211 runs West Indies all-rounder Justin Greaves remains optimistic about his team’s chances, citing a spirited fightback with the ball on day three as a turning point. The West Indies had a tough day with the bat, being bowled out for a mere 146 (65 overs) in their first innings in response to Bangladesh’s first innings of 164, but they bounced back strongly with the ball. Bangladesh, who had gained a slender, 18-run lead in the first innings, were then restricted to 193-5 at stumps on the third day of the Test match at Sabina Park on Monday, thanks to some tight bowling by the West Indies. Shadman Islam top-scored for Bangladesh with 46 runs (82 balls), with Captain Mehidy Hasan Miraz getting 42 runs (39 balls). Jaker Ali (29 runs/49 balls) and Tajiul Islam (9 runs/22 balls) are the not out batsmen for Bangladesh at the crease. For the West Indies, Shamar Joseph was the pick of the bowlers with two wickets from 10 overs that cost 70 runs. Jayden Seales, Alzarri Joseph, and Greaves got one wicket each. “We’re pretty much in the balance,” Greaves said, highlighting the team’s resilience despite a disappointing batting display. Greaves was pleased with the team’s effort with the ball, saying, “I liked how the guys came out and fought in the second innings with the ball.” He also acknowledged that the pitch was still good for batting, but expressed confidence that the West Indies could still make a game of it. “We want to keep them around 250 or 275, the most. It’s a pretty good batting pitch; the ball didn’t misbehave a lot, and once our batters get in I think we will do well. With Bangladesh still holding a significant lead, the West Indies will need to produce a strong batting performance on the fourth day to stay in the game. However, Greaves’ positive outlook and the team’s fighting spirit on day three suggest they are still very much in contention. The West Indies’ overnight lead of 70-1 quickly turned into a batting collapse as they lost their last nine wickets for a mere 76 runs. This dramatic turn of events resulted in the West Indies being bowled out for 146, giving Bangladesh a slim 18-run, first-innings lead. This unexpected twist is only the second time Bangladesh has managed to secure a first-innings lead, after scoring less than 200 runs. The previous instance was in 2008 when they scored 192 against South Africa, resulting in a 22-run lead. Keary Carty was the top scorer for the West Indies, contributing a patient 40 runs from 115 balls with just one boundary. Captain Kraigg Brathwaite also played a solid innings, scoring 39 runs from 129 balls, including three boundaries. Brathwaite was the first to fall on the day, departing at 85-2 in 42.3 overs. However, it was the loss of Carty at 117-7 that marked the beginning of the end for the West Indies. The chief destroyer for Bangladesh was Nahid Rana who claimed five wickets from 18 overs, conceding 61 runs. Rana’s impressive bowling display was instrumental in Bangladesh’s ability to restrict the West Indies and secure a narrow lead.

West Indies stay optimistic despite trailing by 211 Read More »

Music x corporate

Ding Dong grateful for endorsements, career boost Ding Dong’s impact on the dancehall music industry is unquestionable. From creating contagious dance moves to cultivating a culture of movement among young people, the dancer-turned-artiste has cemented himself as a force on the entertainment scene. But his clean, catchy songs and masterfully crafted choreography have not only made him a favorite among dancehall fans, but also a standout among corporate companies. Over the past decade Ding Dong has received huge endorsements from notable brands, among them GraceKennedy, Magnum Tonic Wine, H&L Rapid True Value, and Western Union. Continuing to expand his corporate relationships, the entertainer recently landed the Jamaica Public Service’s (JPS) Christmas campaign. He told the Jamaica Observer that corporate continues to knock at his door because he has nurtured relationships with his vibrant personality. “There are a lot of talented artistes out there who are of such high calibre [so] whenever I’m selected to be the ambassador for any brand, I am always honoured. It really does a lot for one’s career. But I think corporate keeps coming back to Ding Dong to represent their brand because of who I am and what I stand for. I represent dancehall, the fun side of the music, the happiness, the partying, the energy. It’s my personality,” he shared. “One of the key aspects of Ding Dong also is that I am easy to work with. I have gotten that from every brand, every company that I work with, and that’s why I always have long-term relationships with them. To me, it’s not just a gig or a campaign, it’s a partnership, a relationship, and everyone respects that approach.” The artiste says the recent partnership with JPS is one for the books as the company has chosen to bring joy to families during a season many families struggle financially. “When a company gives back to the society in these times it’s huge; and JPS is giving back to 101 customers and that is a lot… It’s the holidays and sometimes the weight that comes on parents to ensure that their children enjoy it, it can be a lot,” he said. “Giving back at any time is always good, but in this season it bears even more weight, especially on families because it allows persons the opportunity to enjoy the Christmas even more.” Ding Dong commended JPS and said he was happy to be a part of the campaign. “We all complain about the bills sometimes, so for the company to pay some of these bills, it’s nothing short of blessings. So what JPS is doing, kudos to them,” he said.

Music x corporate Read More »

Broken

Family grieves teen among two killed in crash; mom wants to see driver MAY PEN, Clarendon — Latoya Lodge is a broken woman. Her world as she knew it was shattered on Monday and she would love a chance to confront the man responsible for the crash that claimed the life of her daughter Jody-Ann Lodge and her schoolmate Richard Tulloch. “Dem fi bring mi go see him, dat dem fi do; bring mi go see him,” the grieving mother muttered when told the police had nabbed the 34-year-old man at Norman Manley International Airport as he allegedly tried to flee the country. As she spoke she almost reverently went through her daughter’s bloodied school bag perched in her lap. Inside, along with a handful of hard cover notebooks, was $2,000 for Jody-Ann’s lunch. The teenager never made it to school. Her head hung low, her voice trailing off in-between sentences, Lodge described how she learnt of the death of her 16-year-old child who they fondly called Princess. “She and her little sister left for school this morning, a she alone come back,” she sighed. News came via a phone call to another of her daughter’s cellphone. Flustered, Lodge left the house without shoes. “I was already getting ready to go May Pen, and a mi daughter run me down with the slippers because a barefoot me reach out a road a go way. She wash off mi foot and put on my slippers, and I don’t remember much after that,” she told the Jamaica Observer at the family home. She didn’t have the courage to take a close look at the scene of the crash that also left two other students injured, one seriously. “I didn’t go at the exact spot where the accident was, mi stay from far and look, then I go to the hospital,” Lodge said. She called her brother and asked him to go see if it was really his niece who had died in the crash. “Him say him pass the person on the ground, but him never know. He turned back and go on the scene and when he pushed and pushed and when he went she lift up her head because she never dead. Him say a head lick she get because she was out of the car,” Lodge said mournfully. In-between deep, heavy breaths, she spoke of the quirks that had endeared Jody-Ann to them all. “She was feisty and quick to cuss out someone, but she is a nice person,” said Lodge. Jody-Ann was her third child, one of three girls, and she said she took pride in her appearance, especially her hair. She loved wearing glasses. “She was a proper hot girl,” said Lodge. Jody-Ann’s uncle Cecil Lodge is among those devastated by her death. He narrowly missed being on the road where it happened. “Is a good thing mi drive the highway, because if I did take that road, mi would buck up in that accident and all drop down. This rough man, mi stressed out,” he said. He said the entire family is shaken up and he is particularly worried about his brother, Jody-Ann’s father. “He has high blood pressure and I don’t even know what to say to him,” he said. Students of Lennon High School received counselling Monday as they struggled to cope with news that two of their classmates had died on the nation’s roads. Principal Tanesha Powell asked for prayers for her school community and also used the opportunity to ask for a safe and secure school transportation system. “The students in the rural areas suffer, and this may be one of the challenges that we face. We are asking [for a steady school bus system for the rural schools],” she appealed. In reacting to the crash, Transport Minister Daryl Vaz said a proposal for operation of the rural transportation for students has been completed by the ministry and will be presented to Cabinet on Monday of next week. According to police reports, a Subaru Impreza was travelling westward towards Four Paths. It is alleged that the driver lost control of the vehicle and collided with an Isuzu motor truck which caused it to overturn and crash into a Toyota Probox. The police were summoned and a total of five passengers were taken to the hospital where the two students succumbed to their injuries. The police said the driver left the scene of the crash but was held at the airport shortly before noon. There have been allegations that the Subaru crashed as the driver tried to elude the police. Assistant Commissioner of Police Gary McKenzie, who is in charge of Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch (PSTEB), said police who were pursuing the car stopped after seeing his reckless overtaking, and soon after they received reports that the vehicle had crashed. According to McKenzie, the vehicle was being illegally operated as a taxi and the insurance had expired.

Broken Read More »

COLD KILLER

Woman shared meal with 8-year-old Danielle Rowe before cutting child’s throat The woman convicted of abducting and killing eight-year-old Danielle Rowe in 2023 shared a meal with the child before cutting her throat and leaving her on the street to die. That gruesome detail was shared in court on Monday by attorney Pierre Rogers who, in making a plea for leniency for the confessed killer, Dental Assistant Kayodi Satchell, argued that his client’s action shows that “she did not steal the child away with the premeditated intent of doing the child harm” but was in fact making a desperate cry for help. Rogers made the argument in his plea and mitigation address before Supreme Court Judge Justice Carolyn Tie-Powell in the Home Circuit Division of the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston. The attorney, while emphasizing that there was no justifiable reason for the murder of anyone, especially a child, said the act was triggered when Satchell, who was in “a stormy and unfortunate relationship” with Danielle’s father, was informed by him, via a social media message which simply said, “If yuh know wah good fi yuh, yuh go test yu self fi HIV.” In arguing that his client had taken the child as “a desperate cry for help”, Rogers said Satchell was disturbed by the callous way in which that disclosure was made, amplified by the fact that she was pregnant. He said his client, because of the situation, had to contend with an aborted second trimester pregnancy. Rogers said his client, having undergone all that she had, was of the view that it was “a child for a child”. Satchell, by her own admission, snatched Rowe from Braeton Primary and Infant School in Portmore, Catherine on June 8, 2023 and took her to a location in St Andrew where she fed her a meal before slashing her throat. The mortally wounded child was found by a member of the Jamaica Defence Force on Roosevelt Avenue in St Andrew. She succumbed to her injuries in hospital two days later on June 10. In September this year Satchell pleaded guilty to the acts which caused widespread horror and outrage. “That’s what it came down to, his child versus the loss of their child… She now knows that it was wrong, it did not start out as premeditation, but towards the end, after several telephone calls to get attention from the persons she thought were in a position to give her attention; when that failed she descended into a state of frustration and bitterness,” Rogers declared. The attorney told the court that efforts by his client — who repeatedly contacted the authorities to have her partner prosecuted “for what she thought was a conscious decision, on his part, to move the virus around” — were rebuffed. He said her state of mind was made worse by the fact that on the day Danielle was taken from the school, she had made numerous calls to the father, his parents, and even an official at his workplace to get their attention about her state but was “ignored”. “She did not steal the child away with the premeditated intent of doing the child harm; rather, it was a desperate cry for help from her to the father,” Rogers insisted. “She said she was tired, frustrated,” the attorney said, insisting that Satchell intended no harm to the eight-year-old as “she actually shared a meal with the child before”. He noted that, while this could not account for the taking of Danielle’s life, the situation was made even “sadder by the loss of her own child’s life”. “In addition to that, Ma’am, HIV, loss of child, loss of job, place of residence, in one fell swoop, Mi’lady, the heavens crashed, it is perhaps for that reason the doctors and psychiatrists were able to confirm that she suffered what is called an adjustment disorder,” Rogers said. “We are not hiding behind this, it is clear in my mind that it did not affect her ability to tell right from wrong, what it does do is set out the context within which she was operating. What it does show is that she acted in a manner that was wrong and caused hurt,” the attorney told the court, adding that all the individuals who were close to Satchell have since turned their backs on her. The attorney, in noting that the judge would be hard-pressed to contemplate any sentence less than life, suggested a starting point “somewhere between 30 and 35 years” with discounts for her guilty plea and remorse and time spent in custody, making it so that she would spend between 27 and 28 years behind bars before eligibility for parole. On Monday, Satchell — clad in a black top and plaid tiered skirt and slippers, her unprocessed hair neatly braided — was seen dabbing at her eyes and blowing her nose several times during the sentencing exercise. Supreme Court Judge Justice Carolyn Tie-Powell said she will hand down her decision on December 20.

COLD KILLER Read More »

Almost full employment yet labour gaps are glaring, Zacca laments

Chris Zacca last Thursday reiterated his call for stronger collaboration between the public and private sectors in pursuit of a national growth strategy, given that Jamaica is still experiencing low economic growth despite unemployment being at its lowest on record. Zacca, the president and CEO of Sagicor Group Jamaica, who in October was inducted into the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica (PSOJ) Hall of Fame, made the call in an address to Mona School of Business’ top performers in the 2024 postgraduate cohort whom he urged to use their skills in service to Jamaica in meaningful ways. He noted that the Statistical Institute of Jamaica’s latest labor force data show that about 4.2 per cent of Jamaicans within the legal working age are unemployed or underemployed. “That means we are almost at a point of full employment, yet the labor gaps are glaring,” Zacca said. “At the same time, the country is plagued by low economic growth. The Planning Institute of Jamaica estimates that the local economy contracted by 2.8 per cent for the July to September 2024 quarter. While this largely reflected the adverse impact of Hurricane Beryl and other weather events, what’s clear is that the county needs to focus on ways to drive growth,” he told the students. He said that over the past few weeks he has reflected on the evolving role of the private sector in Jamaica and its importance and has concluded that “a deeper synergy between the Government and stakeholders is required for a sustainable growth strategy”. He pointed to Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ announcement of a new growth path for the country, saying he was looking forward to seeing what this new growth agenda entails and the steps that will be taken to move the country’s development forward through partnership. On November 19, 2024, Holness, in an address to the nation, opened what he termed the next chapter of Jamaica’s economic transformation by outlining six key pillars of the Government’s growth strategy that, he said, will “move beyond plans and policies and deliver tangible results for the Jamaican people”. He listed the key pillars as: human capital development; diversification of the country’s economic base and development of new industries; infrastructure development; improving the ease, cost and speed of doing business; security; and inclusive growth which, he said, is in keeping with the Jamaica Social Protection Strategy, 2014, which established the provision of support to the most vulnerable groups in the society. “As we move to the next chapter of our development journey we must now come together and forge a new national consensus on economic growth, just as we united around debt reduction and stabilization. It is time for us to set ambitious goals, to think big, and to focus on policies that will enable Jamaica to realize our immense potential as a nation,” Holness told guests at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Andrew, and Jamaicans listening and watching a live stream of the presentation. In his address last Thursday, Zacca told the Mona School of Business students that while he was pleased to hear the prime minister’s pronouncement, those plans for Jamaica’s future will need their input to achieve success. “The same excellence that drove you to be the best in class, must be the same push that drives you to serve this country in a meaningful way. The next phase of growth has to be led by you. It requires all of us to shape the broader economic ecosystem in ways that benefit our key stakeholders — Jamaicans,” he said. “I charge you to embrace leadership — not as a title, but as a responsibility. Leadership is not about being in charge; it’s about making a difference. It’s about making decisions that matter, even when those decisions are difficult,” Zacca told the group. “As top performers, you are uniquely positioned to answer this higher calling. You have the analytical tools, the strategic insight, and the ambition to drive innovation not just within your organisations but across industries and the nation. You graduated at a time when unemployment is at a historic low, but economic growth remains a challenge. The next phase of Jamaica’s development will depend on your ability to reshape the workforce and lead transformative change,” he advised. Zacca, in his PSOJ Hall of Fame acceptance address, had urged the private sector to lead the charge for a new national growth strategy while advocating the cutting of what he described as “unnecessary and archaic regulations that stifle business and incentivize corruption”. His appeal for a new national growth strategy requires the PSOJ to form a coalition of civil society to work with the Government and Opposition. “This coalition,” he said, “must have a respected and influential voice at the decision-making table, ensuring that the hard choices we need to make are implemented for the benefit of all Jamaicans.” Dr Norman Dunn,Minister of State in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security greeted visual impaired Gritley Williams at a church service to mark Disabilities Awareness Week at the Portmore New Testament Church of God in Portmore St.Catherine on Sunday December 1,2024. (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

Almost full employment yet labour gaps are glaring, Zacca laments Read More »

Deportation jitters

New York, USA — As the countdown to January 20, 2025 begins for the return of Donald Trump to office, many undocumented Jamaicans here are scrambling to find ways to evade the mass deportation net that the incoming Administration has threatened to cast over the United States. At least three Jamaican American immigration attorneys — Florida-based Wayne Golding and Winston Tucker as well as Simone Archer of New York — have reported an uptick in the number of people seeking advice on how to deal with their status. A similar situation has also been reported by well-known Jamaican American immigration advocate Irwine Clare Sr, head of Caribbean Immigration Services. Clare and all three attorneys have struck a common theme in their advice, which is that “people should ensure that they are in possession of their documents”. And they are encouraging their panic-stricken compatriots to “act with urgency in filing their paperwork”. Tucker told the Jamaica Observer that he has seen “about a 25 per cent increase in the number of those seeking information on how best to proceed with their immigration issues”. He noted that while each case is different, “my advice has been that they should seek counsel, with one caveat — be careful”. “People need to be in possession of all relevant documents, which should include an indication of how long they have been in the country, among other things,” Tucker advised. As he did in a previous interview, Tucker reiterated that he does not believe that the incoming Trump Administration will be able to just pick up and deport large numbers of undocumented immigrants. He noted that people who are designated as serious criminals and a danger to the society, and others who crossed the border with Mexico, have faced a hearing and ordered removed but are still in the country are likely to be dealt with first. Meanwhile, Archer of Archer Law PLLC said she too has “noticed a considerable increase in the number of people seeking advice on the best way forward with their immigration matters”. The jump in people seeking advice became noticeable close to the November 5 election, which Trump won decisively after warning on the campaign trail that he intended to deport millions of illegal immigrants if he won. It has since accelerated, people who work with immigrants said. “Some of those seeking advice have specific avenues available to them to deal with their situation. Each situation is different, but one advice I try to impart to everyone is that they need to have their documents in their possession,” Archer said. “It is important that they act immediately to deal with their situation. People who are married to United States citizens, for example, should file right away,” she advised. She said that those with children whose situation needs to be formalised should also act with urgency as their cases will have to go through the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status programme under which the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services seeks to make a decision on a special immigrant juvenile petition within six months. Golding told the Observer that the inquiries are coming from people who benefited from an executive order by President Barack Obama between 2008 and 2016 which allowed them to remain in the US while their cases were being dealt with. “There is now a real concern that this particular benefit could be removed, causing serious problems for the beneficiaries,” said Golding, adding: “Most Jamaicans who are in the country illegally did not enter through the southern border with Mexico but have generally overstayed their time.” A Westchester County, New York, immigration attorney, Doug Stone, said he too has seen an uptick in the number of people seeking advice about their status since the election. Early last month, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas struck down a policy by the Joseph Biden Administration which was aimed to make a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants who are married to US citizens. The measure, which was seen as one of the most beneficial presidential actions to help immigrant families, would have allowed undocumented spouses and stepchildren of US citizens to apply for a green card without having to leave the country, according to published reports. The judge, J Campbell Barker, ruled that the Biden Administration had overstepped its authority by implementing the programme. In the meantime, Christopher Benjamin, the community relations officer at the Jamaican Consulate in Manhattan, said that Jamaicans with immigration issues should seek the services of a qualified attorney, as the consulate cannot interfere in the immigration laws of the United States. Immigration attorney Wayne Golding.

Deportation jitters Read More »

Observer reporter among Caribbean delegation in Israel

A small delegation of journalists from the Caribbean, including Jamaica Observer staff reporter Jason Cross, arrived in Israel on Sunday and will spend the next five days visiting specific sites impacted by war, as well as locations that have great historical significance and biblical connections. The purpose of the visit to the Middle East by the journalists will be to capture some of the happenings on the ground in Israel, a country that has been in armed conflict with Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip and Israel since October 7, 2023. As a result of the conflicts, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in November this year, issued three arrest warrants for Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as a senior Hamas official. The three are accused of war crimes during and after the October 7 attacks on Israel last year which led to hundreds of people being tortured and killed. The ICC said in a statement on November 21 that it found reasonable grounds that Netanyahu is criminally responsible for war crimes such as “starvation as a method of warfare”, murder, persecution and other inhumane acts. Jamaica Observer staff reporter, Jason Cross, in Israel. The prime minister’s office has since denied the accusations, labelling them as absurd and antisemitic. It also styled the ICC as a discriminatory body that has political bias and defended Israel’s participation in the conflict as being just, following a murderous attack by Hamas. The attack was described by the PM’s office as the largest massacre against Jewish people since the Holocaust, a genocide of European Jews during World War 2 which began in 1941 and ended in 1945. The Holocaust was carried out by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi German forces and their collaborators, which were said to have claimed the lives of six million Jews. An Israeli official told the Jamaica Observer that the government is happy to host the delegation because it provides the opportunity to show reporters from the Caribbean, “the things from our point of view”. “We really wish that after you see and experience Israel, your opinion would reflect more of how we see things and we would be happy if you could share it with your readers. We see Jamaica as a very important place in the Caribbean. It is one of the most important islands in the Caribbean and also worldwide. Jamaica is a place of international culture that affects the world. It is small but is a very important island and everybody knows Jamaica,” the official said. The official source told the Observer that the situation involving Israel did not spring up overnight and described it as complicated. “It has history. From the press you will read about two sides of the story. From our side, you will hear the Israeli side of the story. A lot of people follow the news but you can see there is a lot of ignorance about the details, the challenges and complexities. They don’t know what is the ideology of Hamas, what is Israel and why Hamas attacked Israel on the 7th of October. “I meet a lot of people who have a lot of interest in the situation in Israel, in Gaza and Lebanon. It is mainly because it is the Holy Land. At the same time, when you try to go deeper you see that they only know the surface news and they don’t really know the details of the story. I think you being in Israel, you will hear a lot of details and go deeper into the issues, to show what you see to your audience in Jamaica,” the official pointed out. While in Israel, the delegation of Caribbean journalists will visit the south of Israel and tour various areas around the Gaza strip which stretches 41 kilometres from north to south. The journalists will meet with a Bedouin leader in the south of Israel and will visit the car cemetery and the site of the Nova Festival where more than 380 people were killed. There was to have been roughly 3,500 people at the Festival on October 7 last year. Many of them were raped before they were killed and some were abducted. The delegation will also sit in on roundtable talks at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during which discussions regarding relations between Israel, Latin America and the Caribbean will be discussed. A visit will also be made to the Holocaust Museum, among other sites of historical significance. On October 7 last year, roughly 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists reportedly forced their way across the Israeli border from Gaza, killing roughly 1,800 people and taking scores of civilians as hostages, exacting on them many acts of brutality including sexual assault. The attack on Israel led to ongoing war against Hamas as well as Hezbollah which is an Iran-backed Lebanese Shia Islamist political party that has a paramilitary arm and several other allied groups of Hamas. There appears to be some form of peace at the moment after a ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Hezbollah. The ceasefire which was brokered by the United States and France took effect on Wednesday November 27, clearing the way for an end to conflict across the Israel-Lebanese border. The conflict killed thousands of people since being sparked by the Gaza war which started in October last year.

Observer reporter among Caribbean delegation in Israel Read More »

Two students killed in Bustamante Highway crash

CLARENDON, Jamaica — Two students died as a result of injuries they sustained in a two-vehicle crash on the Bustamante Highway in Clarendon Monday morning. Preliminary reports are that the crash involved a Toyota Probox being operated as a taxi and a Subaru Impreza motor car. The crash happened approximately 200 meters east of the highway’s intersection with Foga Road. Further details surrounding the crash are unclear at this time but it is believed the taxi was being chased by the Transport Authority.

Two students killed in Bustamante Highway crash Read More »

By reviving a century-old patent for blue paint, this architect reflects on a powerful, lesser-told history

A century ago, the scientist and inventor George Washington Carver filed two patents related to his new method for making paints and stains from Alabama’s clay. He had discovered the iron-rich soil could be used in a chemical reaction with a potassium compound and nitric acid to produce a vibrant blue pigment. It was a familiar hue: Prussian Blue, as it is known, had already changed the course of art history around 1705 when a paint maker in Berlin accidentally discovered its chemistry. It’s the same pigment Pablo Picasso used in his melancholic “blue period,” the rich hue Japanese artist Hokusai chose for the monumental tides of “The Great Wave off Kanagawa,” and the color used in architectural plans that gave “blueprints” their name. Carver, however, had found a way to readily produce it straight from the ground. Despite his numerous inventions over the course of his life — including his best-known experiments with peanut-based products — this discovery was one of the only ones he patented. But his paint pigments were never commercialized, and Carver’s method became just one of millions of patents forgotten in the archives; his pigments were only seen by those who witnessed it painted around Tuskegee University, the historically Black school where Carver taught, and in nearby towns. But over the past three years, the Chicago-based artist and architect Amanda Williams has been reviving Carver’s blue with the help of researchers and scientists. “Typically, blue is produced synthetically… but he was able to source that from this ingredient they had in abundance,” Williams said in a video call with CNN. “So there was a practicality to it, but there was also ingenuity in figuring out that things around you can yield unexpected results.” An arts building at Xavier University painted in Carver blue. Tom Harris/Amanda Williams LLC Williams knew that Carver had a lesser-known artmaking practice — he had even exhibited a painting at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. But she wondered why, out of all of his output, two out of the three inventions he chose to patent were related to pigment-making. (The third was a peanut-based pomade.) “It just struck me as very strange. Given all the work it takes to receive a patent — especially in that era, (for) a Black man, when they were so often denied — why would he expend all this energy on paint?” she posed. Her inquiry took her to Tuskegee’s library and the labs of The University of Chicago, the latter where she partnered with chemistry students to revive and update Carver’s method to produce the deep blue from clay. Now, as part of the art triennial Prospect.6 in New Orleans, Williams has painted two architectural structures important to African American history in Carver blue as both a testament to his capabilities and to Black innovation more broadly. The first is an arts building at Xavier University, the only Catholic HCBU — historically Black college or university — which was founded in 1925. The second is a shotgun-style house on the campus of the New Orleans African American Museum, located in Tremé, the oldest Black neighborhood in the country, where Williams notes there is a “lineage” of self-determination. Shotgun houses are modest railroad-style homes that proliferated after the end of the Civil War for African American families. A shotgun-style house at NOAAM that was known for its pink exterior is now a mix of pink and blue. Tom Harris/Amanda Williams LLC The buildings will remain blue through the end of the triennial, and possibly for longer. Tom Harris/Amanda Williams LLC With Williams having studied shotgun houses during her schooling as an architect, and having family in the South — including a cousin who supplied soil from Montgomery, Alabama, for the pigment testing — she connected “a really beautiful thread” to her own biography in the course of the project, she explained. Color and race Williams never expected to find herself in such a deep rabbit hole over Carver’s history — after all, the scientist was best known for his work with agricultural crops. But the two find parallels in an unexpected place: their beliefs of the potency of color within complicated systems of race, power and inequity. Carver may be best remembered for his peanut-based products, but he was a painter as well. GBM Historical Images/Shutterstock For Carver, color was a tool to beautify the homes of the region’s poorest residents that could be achieved through natural resources. Like with his encouragement of local farmers to enrich themselves by growing bounteous crops (which included soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes, in addition to peanuts), color was a key component of his plans for autonomy, dignity and prosperity for Black families in the South. He encouraged people to freshly paint their homes in bright colors, and wanted to provide the materials to do so. Williams has continued the idea of color as a vehicle for transformation in her home city of Chicago, but she has often employed it to highlight structural inequities. For her project “Color(ed) Theory,” from 2014-16, she painted condemned houses on the historically underfunded South Side neighborhood of Englewood in vivid monochromatic colors pulled from products marketed towards Black consumers — from the bright blue hair product Ultra Sheen to the deep purple of whisky Crown Royal’s packaging. But the colors also had a second meaning, as they resembled the shades on discriminatory government maps of US cities that were used to deny financial services to primarily African American neighborhoods in the 20th century. The practice, known as redlining, had deep effects that have continued to impact struggling communities today. Williams’ previous project, “Color(ed) Theory,” transformed a number of condemned homes in Englewood through paint. Courtesy the artist The empty homes became sculptural, with a familiar color palette taken from products and services marketed to Black residents, that also spoke to systemic inequities. Courtesy the artist But for her commission for Prospect.6, titled “In Her Rich Deposits of (Blue),” Williams chose to focus on “signaling joy, and not inequity or

By reviving a century-old patent for blue paint, this architect reflects on a powerful, lesser-told history Read More »

Intel CEO resigns after a disastrous tenure

Intel Monday announced CEO Pat Gelsinger has resigned after a difficult stint at the company. The once-dominant chipmaker’s stock cratered as it missed the AI boom and was surpassed by most of its rivals. Gelsinger took over as Intel’s chief executive in February 2021, returning to the company at which he worked for decades, including as chief technology officer. He had left Intel for a stint as CEO of software giant VMWare. At Intel, Gelsinger was tasked with turning around the iconic American tech giant that was struggling against unprecedented competition, production delays and the departure of top talent. But during his tenure, the company’s prospects continued to decline, as it became clear the company had fallen behind on another major technology wave and despite billions of dollars in US government spending to support its domestic chip manufacturing. Intel’s (INTC) stock plunged 61% during Gelsinger’s tenure. The stock rose 3% in early trading. The company announced in August that it would lay off 15% of its staff as part of an effort to slash $10 billion in costs and “fundamentally change the way we operate,” as Gelsinger said at the time. Intel once had a stranglehold on the world’s computer chip market, with Intel chips inside PCs and Macs. But the mobile computing wave of the past two decades caught the company off-guard, leaving it to fall behind rivals. In recent years, Intel was caught on its back foot by the AI wave. The year after Gelsinger took over as CEO, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, which took the world by storm. The rest is history: Nvidia, which was once a tiny Intel competitor, is now the second-most-valuable company in the world after it bet big on chips that can power the massive datacenters that power AI. Nvidia’s $3.4 trillion market value is 33 times bigger than Intel’s $104 billion value. Nvidia’s stock has surged nearly 720% over the past two years, as the company became the talk of the tech world and one of the most valuable public companies in the world. Intel’s struggles have raised questions about a potential takeover by a rival like Qualcomm, a possibility that may be more practical under the incoming Trump administration, which is expected to be less aggressive in pursuing antitrust concerns. A company in transition Gelsinger stepped down as CEO and resigned from Intel’s board effective December 1, the company said Monday. He will be replaced by interim co-CEOs David Zinsner, Intel’s chief financial officer, and Michelle (MJ) Johnston Holthaus, general manager of Intel’s client computing group, as the company conducts a search for a permanent new CEO. Holthaus has also been named to the newly-created CEO of Intel products, which will oversee, among other things, its data center and AI product efforts. “While we have made significant progress in regaining manufacturing competitiveness and building the capabilities to be a world-class foundry, we know that we have much more work to do at the company and are committed to restoring investor confidence,” Frank Yeary, Intel’s independent board chair, who has been named interim executive chair following Gelsinger’s exit, said in a statement. “With Dave and MJ’s leadership, we will continue to act with urgency on our priorities: simplifying and strengthening our product portfolio and advancing our manufacturing and foundry capabilities while optimizing our operating expenses and capital. We are working to create a leaner, simpler, more agile Intel,” Yeary said. Intel’s new co-CEOs will oversee a risky and expensive bid to transition the company’s business model to manufacture processors for competitors like Apple, putting it into more direct competition with chipmaking giant TSMC. That effort has been central to a push by the Biden administration to revitalize chip manufacturing on American soil. But even that has been dogged by delays. Intel last week announced that the $8.5 billion grant it had been awarded by the Biden administration in March under the CHIPS Act to support the construction and expansion of its US manufacturing facilities was being cut to $7.86 billion, after Intel delayed its timeline for investing in and opening some new plants. The company said the reduced award reflected a separate, $3 billion award from the government to produce chips for US defense efforts.

Intel CEO resigns after a disastrous tenure Read More »

‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’: How Netflix brought the imaginary town of Macondo to life

How do you bring to life one of the most beloved Latin American towns — one that has a century of history, but never existed at all? That was the task facing the production team of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (or “Cien Años de Soledad”), the long-awaited Netflix adaptation of a novel widely lauded as being among the 20th century’s greatest literary works. Written in 1967 by the Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, the book follows seven generations of the Buendía family, who follow cyclical paths of obsession, yearning, idealism and detachment, and are tied inextricably to the fate of their home, Macondo. From one of the first scenes, as Colonel Aureliano Buendía faces down a firing squad against a bloodied, white stucco wall on a clear day, viewers are transported into Macondo, an isolated riverside settlement that flourishes into a prosperous town before confronting war and colonialist exploitation. As one of the most famous works in the magical realism genre, the book’s setting teems with the supernatural and the dreamlike, though they are treated as everyday occurrences. Early on, an insomnia plague sinks residents into a haze of short-term memory loss; later, a single trickle of blood turns corners, crosses streets and climbs curbs to alert the family matriarch, Úrsula, of a shocking death. Filmed entirely in Colombia, the native country of author Gabriel García Márquez, the two-season show is set in the fictional town Macondo, which was founded by José Arcadio Buendía after he led followers on a harrowing multi-year journey to find the sea. Mauro González/Netflix Before his death in 2014, Marquez credited his storytelling style to that of his grandmother, who talked of fantastic things “with complete naturalness.” “What was most important was the expression she had on her face,” he told The Paris Review in 1981. “In previous attempts to write ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ I tried to tell the story without believing in it. I discovered that what I had to do was believe in them myself and write them with the same expression with which my grandmother told them: with a brick face.” The meticulous building of Macondo Macondo has never been found on any map — though it might have, had an ill-fated 2006 proposal to change the name of Marquez’s birthplace, Aracataca, succeeded — but it has lived in the minds of readers for decades. It is also steeped in real Colombian history. Because of that, the Netflix show, which will span two seasons and premieres on December 11, was filmed exclusively in the country and is entirely in Spanish. The show also has the blessing of the author’s family, with Marquez’s sons, Rodrigo Garcia and Gonzalo Garcia Barcha, serving as executive producers. Production involved building meticulous town-sized sets and creating faithful costumes from the 1800s and 1900s. “‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ occurs during a specific time in Colombian history,” said production designer Bárbara Enríquez in a translated video call with CNN. “We treated it as a period piece.” To fulfill the “realism” of the magical realism genre, the production team built three full towns that are faithful to the period of Colombian history in which the novel takes place. El Departamento/Netflix Two versions Macondo were built in Alvarado, a town in the Colombian Andes, to show the passage of time as the town prospers. Mauro González/Netflix Enríquez took over production design in 2022, after Eugenio Caballero, best known for his Academy Award-winning “Pan’s Labyrinth” sets, stepped down from the project. (Caballero and Enríquez previously worked together on Alfonso Cuáron’s Academy Award-winning “Roma” in 2018). The production of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” is one of the largest in Latin American history, according to Netflix, and required the building of three different towns. The first served as the unnamed village of mud huts and bamboo, where cousins José Arcadio Buendía and Úrsula Iguarán grow up and marry one another before leading part of their community on an exodus across mountain ranges and disorienting swamplands to establish Macondo. Then, there were two versions of Macondo itself: the simple thatched homes and dirt roads of its early years, followed by the verdant streets and elegant multi-story homes that develop as the town becomes increasingly connected with the outside world. Magical realism is “actually just reality wherein magical things occur,” Enríquez said. “From the set design perspective, what we wanted to do was a very rigorous historical set, so that we could then insert the extraordinary parts within the ordinary.” Jerónimo Barón as young Aureliano and Marco Antonio González as his father, José Arcadio, in a scene that Aureliano remembers for the rest of his life: The wonderment of seeing a block of ice for the first time. Mauro González/Netflix But that didn’t mean that individual props couldn’t evoke a sense of wonder. Take the first significant prop seen in the show — the parchment book in which gypsy character Melquíades writes, in Sanskrit, the entirety of Macondo’s history (which becomes the novel itself). To create it, the production team worked with a Sanskrit translator who adapted the the full text, as well as a calligrapher who worked on the giant tome, according to Enríquez. Then there’s the first block of ice ever seen in Macondo, brought in by traveling gypsies, that stays in Aureliano’s memories for the rest of his life. Presented like an enormous, glittering diamond in a gold chest, which erupts into fog when opened and casts a soft light onto José Arcadio and his two sons, the indelible ice was real. “It was so important to have the authentic look and feel, and so that when (young Aureliano) touched the ice, the actor’s reaction was authentic,” recalled Enríquez. How a house became a character At the figurative center of the town is the Buendía household, ever expanding to accommodate the needs of its revolving members. Its bedrooms are filled with lovelorn characters coming of age and finding intimacy beneath their mosquito nets; its alchemic laboratory hosts the obsessive scientific experiments

‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’: How Netflix brought the imaginary town of Macondo to life Read More »

NFL legend Randy Moss asks for ‘prayers’ while revealing he is ‘battling something internally’

  NFL legend Randy Moss says he is “battling” a health issue and called for his fans to send him “prayers.” The former wide receiver, who now works as a pundit, posted two videos on Instagram Sunday to explain why he’s been wearing tinted sunglasses during his television appearances this week. “Throughout the week of the holidays, your boy has been battling something internal,” he said in a video, along with a caption which read “get (your) checkups.” Moss, who in 2018 was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, then addressed the issue at the top of ESPN’s coverage of Sunday NFL Countdown. “I just wanted to share something with you all,” the 47-year-old said. “I put a post up maybe a few minutes ago on Instagram just telling people – you were talking about my eyes last week – and I just want to let the viewers know that me and my wife, me and my family, we are battling something internally. “I have some great doctors around me. I couldn’t miss the show, I wanted to be here with you guys.” The analyst appeared to be in high spirits as he joked with colleagues on the show, saying he felt “great.” It comes after concern grew last week, when viewers noticed Moss’ eyes appeared yellow. He has since started to wear sunglasses during television appearances. Moss playing for the San Francisco 49ers on January 20, 2013, in Atlanta, Georgia. Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images “It’s not being disrespectful,” he explained on Sunday’s show. “Because I’m on television. I’m battling something. I need all the prayer warriors. God bless you all and thanks for the prayers.” Moss did not reveal any details about what he was battling. The NFL legend played 14 seasons in the league, most notably with the Minnesota Vikings and the New England Patriots. He is considered one of the greatest wide receivers in the sport’s history, being named a first-team All-Pro four times and leading the NFL in receiving touchdowns on five occasions. Over his stellar career, Moss had 15,292 receiving yards and 156 touchdowns.

NFL legend Randy Moss asks for ‘prayers’ while revealing he is ‘battling something internally’ Read More »

Four friends posed for a photo on vacation in 1972. Over 50 years later, they recreated it

In the photo, four young women walk arm in arm, smiling and laughing, on a beach promenade. They’re dressed in mini skirts and flip flops, and there’s what looks like a 1960s Ford Corsair in the background. This is clearly a snapshot from a bygone era, but there’s something about the picture — the womens’ expressions, their laughs — that captures a timeless and universal feeling of joy, youth and adventure. For the four women in the photo, Marion Bamforth, Sue Morris, Carol Ansbro and Mary Helliwell, the picture is a firm favorite. Taken over 50 years ago on a group vacation to the English seaside town of Torquay, Devon, the photo’s since become symbolic of their now decades-long friendship. Whenever they see the picture, they’re transported back to the excitement of that first trip together. “It’s always been our memory of Torquay,” Sue Morris tells CNN Travel. “The iconic photograph — which is why I got the idea of trying to recreate it.” ‘The iconic photograph’ Bamforth, Morris, Ansbro and Helliwell were 17 when the photo was taken, “by one of these roving photographers that used to roam the promenade and prey on tourists like us,” as Morris recalls it. It was the summer of 1972 and the four high school classmates — who grew up in the city of Halifax, in the north of England — were staying in a rented caravan in coastal Devon, in southwest England. It was a week of laughs, staying out late, flirting with boys in fish and chip shops, sunburn, swapping clothes, sharing secrets and making memories by the seaside. Fast forward to 2024 and Bamforth, Morris, Ansbro and Helliwell remain firm friends. They’ve been by each other’s sides as they’ve carved out careers, fallen in love, brought up families and gone through heartbreak and grief. Sue enjoys keeping scrapbooks and photo albums of the women’s adventures. Here’s a page from her Torquay 1972 scrapbook. Courtesy Sue Morris Over the years, the foursome have enjoyed adventures together to destinations including Majorca and Portugal. And this year, to celebrate turning 70, they decided to return to Torquay, where it all began. “We always said, when we were younger, that one day we would go back to Torquay,” Ansbro tells CNN Travel. “And because we were reaching the big 7-0, we decided to finally go. Then Susan decided she’d love to recreate the picture that we’d taken when we were 17. But at first me, Mary and Marion weren’t very keen…” It’s always been our memory of Torquay. The iconic photograph — which is why I got the idea of trying to recreate it. Sue Morris This hesitation mostly revolved around the thought of wearing clothes that at least evoked, if not directly resembled, outfits they’d last worn in the early 1970s (“I don’t wear skirts or dresses now,” says Bamforth, who recalls that in the original photo, three of the women are wearing near-identical skirts from then-UK shopping stalwart Tammy Girl). Concern was heightened by the fact the trip was scheduled for late fall (“It was going to be October and we were going to be freezing cold in those mini skirts…” says Ansbro). But in the end, it didn’t take much for Morris to win her friends over. She’s always been the archivist of the group, putting together photo albums and scrapbooks of their adventures over the years (“Sue is very good at doing things like that,” says Helliwell). Morris convinced her friends that the recreation would be a fun way to mark their 70th birthdays and toast their decades of friendship. So, in the lead up to the Torquay trip, the four friends spent hours scouring thrift stores and online second-hand sales, searching for clothes that resembled their teenage outfits. And then the next thing they knew, the group were squeezed into a Torquay public bathroom, stripping off their October-ready winter coats and getting changed into their teenage-adjacent summer dresses and bright-colored blouses (“We didn’t want to be walking around with those clothes on all day long,” says Morris.) The public bathroom changing experience involved some last minute creativity — such as when Ansbro realized her shirt didn’t really fit, so she “just hacked off the bottom.” There were a lot of laughs as the foursome helped one another into clothing and helped arrange each other’s hair. Then, aided by a member of staff at their hotel, the group tracked down the exact spot where the original picture was taken. A couple of other friends, Jane Brook and Carole Connell, who were also on the trip, took the recreated photo. Brook and Connell directed Bamforth, Morris, Ansbro and Helliwell, helping them accurately recreate their original poses. The result? A pretty note-perfect recreation: in the 2024 photo, Bamforth, Morris, Ansbro and Helliwell, are once again captured mid-walk, arms linked, smiles on their faces. When the four friends saw the recreated photo, and then saw it side by side with the original, they were struck by the lumps in their throats. “It was both emotional and we were elated,” says Morris. “We were really pleased with how the latest photo turned out,” says Bamforth, who adds that she “agrees with Sue, it was very emotional.” Bamforth was also happy that “it was a good photo of all of us.” “It was good fun with the best company,” says Helliwell. “It was a great idea by Susan,” agrees Ansbro, who found herself thinking of “all that’s happened to us in between the pics.” “That day we recreated the photo is a cherished memory too, now,” she adds. The ‘beauty’ of friendship Here’s the recreated photo, taken in October 2024. Pictured from left to right: Marion Bamforth, Sue Morris, Carol Ansbro and Mary Helliwell in Torquay, Devon in the UK. Courtesy Jane Brook and Carole Connell A few weeks after they returned from Torquay, the group decided to submit the two photos, with an accompanying write-up by Ansbro’s husband, to the Halifax Courier, their local newspaper

Four friends posed for a photo on vacation in 1972. Over 50 years later, they recreated it Read More »

Fan violence at soccer match in Germany leaves 79 people injured, including 10 police officers

Fan violence at a soccer match in Germany left 79 people injured on Saturday, local police said. Supporters of FC Carl Zeiss Jena and BSG Chemie Leipzig clashed following the fourth-division match, which Jena won 5-0, in an episode of “disinhibited violence,” police said. The statement from Thuringia Police said some of the visiting Leipzig supporters threw pyrotechnics towards the home fans after the match, which prompted both sets of fans to “forcibly open” two gates separating them. This led to a “brief, uncontrolled clash,” police said. “The situation could only be stopped by the police forces who intervened with the use of irritant gas and batons,” the statement added. Of the 79 injured, 64 were fans, 10 were police officers and five were match stewards. Police said a total of 40 criminal and misdemeanor charges were filed, while “massive property damages” were also reported. In a statement, Leipzig called the actions of its own fans throwing and shooting pyrotechnics towards Jena supporters “despicable,” but added it was the “misconduct of a minority.” “1,200 Chemie fans travelled to Jena and loudly supported their team, even in the face of a heavy defeat that was looming early on,” the statement read. “This positive image has faded into the background in light of the misconduct of a minority. We will therefore not only remember the day in a bad light because of the performance on the pitch. As a club, we suffered great damage yesterday. “We condemn violence in the form of physical confrontations, especially the use of pyrotechnics against people. This has no place at our football matches and will not be tolerated by us.” Jena called it an “unpleasant ending” to the match, adding: “FC Carl Zeiss Jena wishes those affected a speedy recovery. The club will get a comprehensive picture of what happened in the next few days so that it can then make a well-founded statement on the incident.”

Fan violence at soccer match in Germany leaves 79 people injured, including 10 police officers Read More »

Australia’s biggest cocaine bust seized from broken down boat at sea

Australian police seized the country’s largest haul of cocaine aboard a fishing boat that had broken down near the coast of Queensland, arresting 13 people alleged to be part of a drug-smuggling syndicate. Authorities tracked a recreational fishing boat as it traveled out to sea where it allegedly met a mothership in international waters to fetch the cocaine – some 2.34 metric tons with a street value of nearly half a billion dollars. The boat suffered a suspected mechanical breakdown, leaving the alleged traffickers stranded 18 kilometers (11 miles) off the northeastern tip of K’gari island, formerly known as Fraser Island, on Saturday. Police seized their chance to board the boat, arresting two men at sea in a joint investigation between federal and local forces. Another 11 were arrested on shore, including two juveniles. The arrests include the Brisbane vice president of the Comanchero Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, which is accused of engaging in violence, extortion and trafficking, police said. All the suspects are accused of being part of a criminal syndicate and have been charged with conspiracy to import a commercial quantity of drugs. The maximum penalty is life imprisonment. Police found 2.34 metric tons of cocaine wrapped in bales with roped netting around them on a recreational fishing vessel. Australian Federal Police Police said the haul was the equivalent to 11.7 million individual street deals. “We know that criminals go to extreme lengths, and often risk their own lives, to smuggle drugs into Australia with no regard to the harm they cause to Australian communities,” Commander Stephen Jay said. “This alleged attempt to collect more than 2 tons of cocaine from the ocean shows that criminals will do anything for their own greed and profit.” The police operation began in November following a tip-off that the Comanchero biker gang was allegedly planning to bring the drugs into the country. Australian police have warned in recent years that international drugs cartels are increasingly targeting the country, where a surge in cocaine use combined with some of the highest street prices in the world has fueled a lucrative illicit market. Last week, six so-called “narco subs” stuffed with cocaine were captured in a Colombian-led international anti-drug operation. Among the haul was 225 metric tons of cocaine, 5 tons of which was found aboard a semi-submersible vessel plying a marine trafficking route from Colombia to Australia, according to the Colombian Navy.

Australia’s biggest cocaine bust seized from broken down boat at sea Read More »

Putin approves record defense spending – a third of Russia’s budget

Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a record-breaking defense budget, setting aside a staggering third of the government’s total spending as the war in Ukraine drains resources from both sides nearly three years on. The budget for 2025, which was published Sunday, allocates about $126 billion (13.5 trillion rubles) to national defense – amounting to 32.5% of government spending. The defense budget is about $28 billion (three trillion rubles) higher than the previous record set this year. The new three-year budget forecasts a slight reduction in military spending for 2026 and 2027. Lawmakers in both houses of the Russian parliament approved the budget. Russia’s war in Ukraine is the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. Moscow is currently making gains at key spots along the front lines and fighting a counteroffensive in Kursk region – the site of Kyiv’s only major military success this year. But the slow, grinding war – often called a war of attrition, where both sides are trying to wear down the other – has drained both countries’ resources. Ukraine has always been on the back foot when it comes to both material and manpower, though it has received billions of dollars in help from its Western allies, including more than half a billion in new military equipment pledged by Germany on Monday. How much aid will continue to come from the United States once President-elect Donald Trump takes office remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Russia has more weapons, more ammunition and more personnel – but the strain on its economy and population is growing. Russia has massively increased its military spending over the past two years and its economy is showing signs of overheating: inflation is running high, and companies are facing labor shortages. Trying to control the situation, the Russian Central Bank raised interest rates to 21% in October, the highest in decades. Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to receive significant military assistance from its allies. On Monday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in Kyiv for the first time in more than two years, where he pledged more than 650 million euros ($684 million) in military equipment to Ukraine. “Germany will remain Ukraine’s strongest supporter in Europe,” Scholz said. Scholz’s visit came after he rankled Ukrainian officials last month by calling Vladimir Putin, ending a years-long European effort to isolate the Russian President following his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Scholz meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky outside St. Sophia’s Cathedral in Kyiv on Monday. Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images Meanwhile, although Russia has many more people than Ukraine, it is suffering significant battlefield losses and recruitment of new troops is already a problem – the last time the Russian military introduced a partial mobilization, hundreds of thousands of men fled the country. North Korea recently sent an influx of soldiers to help Russia fight on the front lines – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in November that about 11,000 North Korean soldiers were in Kursk. Some of Russia’s weaponry is also North Korean, accounting for almost a third of the ballistic missiles fired at Ukraine this year, according to Ukrainian defense officials and CNN’s tally of attacks. The North Korean troops may help Russia’s efforts for some time – but the material losses could be harder to make up for.

Putin approves record defense spending – a third of Russia’s budget Read More »

Elton John says he has lost his eyesight

Elton John says he still cannot see, months after suffering a severe eye infection. Speaking on stage at a gala performance of the “The Devil Wears Prada” musical in London on Sunday, John thanked his husband, David Furnish, saying he “has been my rock.” “I haven’t been able to come to many of the previews because, as you know, I have lost my eyesight. So it’s hard for me to see it. But I love to hear it and, boy, it sounded good tonight,” said John, who wrote the score for the show. In an interview with “Good Morning America” last week, John said the issue has been affecting his ability to work. “I unfortunately lost my eyesight in my right eye in July because I had an infection in the south of France and it’s been four months now since I haven’t been able to see, and my left eye is not the greatest,” he said. “So, there’s hope and encouragement that it will be OK, but… I’m kind of stuck at the moment, because I can do something like this (the interview), but going into the studio and recording, I don’t know, because I can’t see a lyric for a start.” John, who is 77, first spoke publicly about his sight problem in September, when he shared on his Instagram page that he had been “dealing with a severe eye infection that has unfortunately left me with only limited vision in one eye.” “I am healing, but it’s an extremely slow process and it will take some time before sight returns to the impacted eye,” John wrote, before thanking the “excellent team of doctors and nurses and my family” for taking such good care of him. “I have been quietly spending the summer recuperating at home,” he wrote, adding that he is “feeling positive about the progress I have made in my healing and recovery thus far.” While John officially retired from touring in 2023 after decades of performing live, he wrote the music for the musical of “The Devil Wears Prada.” It is based on the 2003 novel by Lauren Weisberger, which was also turned into a movie in 2006.

Elton John says he has lost his eyesight Read More »

Oxford’s word of the year is a modern condition familiar to most of us By Rosa Rahimi, CNN

  There’s a name for that feeling you get after spending too long scrolling aimlessly, and Oxford University Press (OUP) has chosen it as its word for the year for 2024. “Brain rot” took the title in a vote in which more than 37,000 people participated, as well as public commentary and analysis of OUP’s language data. In a statement released Monday, OUP, which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, defined “brain rot” as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.” While the use of “brain rot” rose 230% this year, it actually first appeared more than a century ago. According to OUP, it was first used by author Henry David Thoreau in his book “Walden” as he criticized society’s tendency to devalue complicated ideas in favor of simple ones. “While England endeavors to cure the potato rot,” wrote Thoreau, “will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?” All these years later, it seems brain rot is well and truly established. The term has gained traction over the past year, however, especially as worries grow about the impact of over-consuming low-quality content online. Earlier this year, a behavioral healthcare provider in the United States began offering treatment for brain rot, describing it as a condition of “mental fogginess, lethargy, reduced attention span, and cognitive decline.” The healthcare company cited doomscrolling and social media addiction as examples of brain rot behavior, which could be prevented by setting limits on screen time or doing a digital detox. “’Brain rot’ speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time,” said Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, in Monday’s announcement. “I also find it fascinating that the word ‘brain rot’ has been adopted by Gen Z and Gen Alpha… These communities have amplified the expression through social media channels, the very place said to cause ‘brain rot,’” he added. “It demonstrates a somewhat cheeky self-awareness in the younger generations about the harmful impact of the social media that they’ve inherited.” The word beat out five other shortlisted contenders, which included “lore,” meaning a body of (supposed) facts, background information and anecdotes required to fully understand something; “romantasy,” a portmanteau for literature combining elements of romantic fiction and fantasy; and “slop,” which refers to low-quality content generated by artificial intelligence. “Demure,” a word that went viral over the summer following a popular TikTok video, was also shortlisted. The word, which means being reserved in appearance or behavior, had already been named word of the year by Dictionary.com last week. Last year, Oxford chose “rizz” as its word of 2023. Derived from the word charisma, it refers to a person’s ability to attract a romantic partner.

Oxford’s word of the year is a modern condition familiar to most of us By Rosa Rahimi, CNN Read More »

11,000 jobs on the line as another German company stumbles

Thyssenkrupp Steel has announced plans to eliminate 11,000 jobs by the end of this decade — about 40% of its workforce — becoming the latest German industrial giant to opt for drastic action to prop up its fortunes. The company said Monday that it is aiming to cut around 5,000 roles by 2030, through reducing production and streamlining administration. A further 6,000 jobs will be transferred to external service providers or shed through the sale of business units. “Increasingly, (global) overcapacity and the resulting rise in cheap imports, particularly from Asia, are placing a considerable strain on competitiveness,” Thyssenkrupp Steel said in a statement. “In addition, urgent measures are needed to improve Thyssenkrupp Steel’s own productivity and operating efficiency, and to achieve a competitive cost level.” The news is the latest blow to Europe’s biggest economy, where storied manufacturers face a perfect storm of competition from Chinese rivals, traditional disadvantages such as steep labor costs and high taxes, and energy costs driven higher by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Germany’s economy shrank last year for the first time since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. And it is set to contract again this year, according to forecasts from the European Union’s executive body, the European Commission, earlier this month. Thyssenkrupp, Germany’s largest steel producer, joins the country’s biggest manufacturer Volkswagen in setting out a major overhaul to cut costs and bolster competitiveness. Volkswagen said earlier this month that it would reduce employee pay by 10% to protect jobs and safeguard the company’s future. The German automaker also plans to close at least three factories in its home country and lay off tens of thousands of staff. Although not a German company, fellow carmaker Ford (F) said last week that it would cut almost 4,000 jobs in Europe over the next three years, mostly in Germany and the United Kingdom. The US company has urged the German government to improve market conditions for automakers, including through lowering costs for manufacturers and increasing public investment in charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Struggling German industry The troubles at Thyssenkrupp and Volkswagen reflect worsening conditions in the broader private sector in Germany. According to a recent study commissioned by the Federation of German Industries, an umbrella organization for business lobby groups, one-fifth of Germany’s industrial output may disappear between now and 2030, primarily due to high energy costs and shrinking markets for German goods. Industrial output encompasses sectors such as manufacturing and the production of chemicals, among other activities. “The lead that the country has built up over decades in areas such as combustion technology is losing importance, and the German export model is increasingly under pressure due to growing geopolitical tensions, global protectionism and locational weaknesses,” notes the report, co-authored by Boston Consulting Group and the German Economic Institute. “Locational weaknesses” include high energy costs, onerous red tape, and outdated physical and digital infrastructure. The study concludes that the German economy needs “the biggest transformation effort since the post-war period,” requiring additional investments in everything from infrastructure and research and development, to education and green technologies of around €1.4 trillion ($1.5 trillion) by 2030.

11,000 jobs on the line as another German company stumbles Read More »

Warren Buffett just shared his most detailed plan yet for his fortune when he dies By Bryan Mena, CNN

Warren Buffett shared on Monday his most detailed plan yet for his fortunes after death, while announcing he will continue to give away his staggering wealth. In a letter to shareholders, the iconic investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO, who is 94, reflected on the nature of mortality, referencing how he once hoped his late first wife would outlive him and decide how to distribute their fortune. “Father time always wins,” Buffett wrote. “But he can be fickle – indeed unfair and even cruel – sometimes ending life at birth or soon thereafter while, at other times, waiting a century or so before paying a visit. To date, I’ve been very lucky, but, before long, he will get around to me.” In the nearly 1,300-word letter, Buffett said he hopes his three children — Susie, Howard and Peter Buffett, who are in their 60s and 70s — will live long enough to decide what philanthropic causes their father’s fortunes will be donated to. When Buffett passes, they will be tasked with unanimously deciding how to give away his wealth. But, in case his children aren’t able to determine the fate of his fortune, Buffett also designated three potential successor trustees. He did not name them in the letter. “The expected life span of my children has materially diminished since the 2006 pledge,” he wrote. “I’ve never wished to create a dynasty or pursue any plan that extended beyond the children.” Buffett also announced he is turning 1,600 Class A shares of his company into 2.4 million Class B shares, which have fewer voting rights. Of those shares, 1.5 million will be donated to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named after his late first wife, and 300,000 to three other foundations led by his children — all worth about $1.2 billion. The donations add to annual gifts made to the four family foundations, as well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Since 2006, Buffett has pledged to steadily give away his wealth, which is estimated to be $150 billion, according to Bloomberg. He has said the rest of it will be given away after his death. Warren Buffett smiles during an interview in Omaha, Nebraska, in May 2018. Nati Harnik/AP

Warren Buffett just shared his most detailed plan yet for his fortune when he dies By Bryan Mena, CNN Read More »

Photos shine a light on Taiwan’s ‘betel nut beauties’

Mong Shuan was just 16 when she turned to an unconventional source of income: selling betel nuts from a little stall in northern Taiwan. The stimulant, a small, oblong fruit derived from areca palms, is chewed by millions of people across Asia. For the next three years, Mong would work six days a week for the equivalent of around $670 a month. A small bonus was tacked on for dressing provocatively to entice male customers. Her job was to slice the nuts open and add a pinch of slaked lime (or calcium hydroxide, which increases the body’s absorption of the stimulant they contain), before neatly wrapping each one in a leaf. To meet her sales targets, the betel nut “must be delicious.” she told CNN in an email. But hoping to attract more business, Mong would wear her dyed red hair long, a little makeup and a schoolgirl outfit in the style of Japanese anime character Sailor Moon. “The most important thing is your appearance,” she added. Vendors like Mong, who left the job in February, are known locally as “betel nut beauties.” The phenomenon emerged in the late 1960s, when the Shuangdong Betel Nut Stand, a stall in rural central Taiwan, successfully marketed their products with a campaign centered on its “Shuangdong Girls.” By the turn of the 21st century, tens of thousands of the neon-lit booths, which dot roadsides and industrial neighborhoods across the island, were staffed by young women. A betel nut stall in Taipei. Constanze Han Hoping to document the phenomenon, photographer Constanze Han spent a month in 2022 driving down the highway connecting the island’s capital, Taipei, to the southern city of Kaohsiung, meeting betel nut beauties along the way. Her fascination with the women dates back to the summer trips she used to make to her grandfather’s courtyard house on the outskirts of Taipei. “I loved driving there because there were the betel nut girls,” she recalled in a phone interview. “As a child, I didn’t really understand (who they were). My family had been to Amsterdam one time and we’d walked past the red-light district, so I thought it was a similar thing.” While the scenes of women, scantily clad in glass booths, might resemble brothels, selling betel nuts is not widely linked to prostitution in Taiwan. In fact, the women rarely leave their stalls except to approach drivers in their high heels. Nonetheless, the very existence of provocative betel nut beauties seemed strange in “a quiet, conservative culture” like Taiwan’s, said Han, who hoped her project could help dispel some of the stereotypes the women faced. A seller looks for customers while she prepares betel nuts. Constanze Han “(People with) engrained ideas of respectability, without really knowing or having interacted with these girls, might be like, ‘Oh those are girls from the wrong side of the tracks,’” she said. But in reality, Han added, “they all seemed quite level (headed) and responsible.” The photographer, who grew up between Hong Kong and New York with stints in Latin America, has always been interested in the jobs women take to survive regardless of the stigma associated with them. She was inspired by the work of Susan Meiselas, whose 1970s photo series “Carnival Strippers,” captured women working hard and long hours performing stripteases at carnivals in New England. “I always end up gravitating towards women,” said Han, who would spend time getting to know her subjects before asking to take their photos. “The conversation part, where there are no photographs, is such a big part of it. I end up having more honest conversations with women and I feel more curious about the nuances of their experiences.” Betel nuts are sometimes packaged in boxes featuring imagery of young women. Constanze Han Changing habits Han photographed 12 women, mostly in their late teens or early 20s, apart from one slightly older subject named Xiao Hong, who dresses more conservatively as she prepares the product wearing bright blue gloves at a betel nut stall in New Taipei City. The others appear drenched in the neon light of their booths or are shot gazing out of the windows; one woman’s face is distorted by the reflection of the busy streets outside. The photographer would spend hours capturing small, quiet moments that reveal the job’s mundane nature. Han’s experience as a former fashion editor comes through in the photos, which often look as if they were staged or taken from the pages of a glossy magazine. But it’s important that her images are “as honest as possible,” she said. The women would usually arrive for work in their normal clothes and get changed into more revealing garments in the booths, Han explained. Sometimes, owners would incentivize them to dress in a sexier way, though some of Han’s subjects said they would have done so anyway, because it helps them sell more products. One of Han’s subjects, Ju Ju, is pictured at a booth in the city of Taoyuan. Constanze Han One of the women Han photographed, Ju Ju, is pictured wearing red lingerie as she looks out of her strobe-lit booth in the city of Taoyuan. She began selling betel nuts to help make ends meet, the photographer said, adding that employment opportunities were limited for the young mom, who has no higher education. But Ju Ju has since grown to value the stability of the job. She has now been promoted to a manager position of two booths, and hopes to buy her own stall one day, Han added. Nonetheless, concerns that the women are victims of exploitation persist in Taiwan, and have prompted some regulation over the past two decades. In 2002, for example, the local government in Taoyuan county implemented a strict dress code that requires sellers to cover their breasts, butts and bellies. Although it is traditionally served by Taiwan’s indigenous communities at important gatherings, use of the addictive stimulant is also declining sharply. The island’s Ministry of Health and Welfare — which notes that users are 28 times more

Photos shine a light on Taiwan’s ‘betel nut beauties’ Read More »

‘Not your parents’ Love Boat’: The buzzy features bringing new passengers to cruise ships

On Disney’s newest cruise ship, the Treasure, kids ride a slide down to enter a children’s club. While they play and design their own Avengers costumes, adults can grab a cocktail at a bar themed to Disney’s classic ride, the Haunted Mansion. Later in the day, kids, parents and grandparents can meet up at a restaurant intricately themed to Pixar’s “Coco.” That’s just a snapshot of what cruising looks like today versus a decade ago or more when some industry experts say many would-be cruisers still thought of it as something only grandparents did. But after the pandemic, there has been a surge in new cruise passengers. “Everybody wanted to cruise all of a sudden, and the cruise lines were coming up with more and more entertaining equipment, so you could do almost anything at sea. It’s not your parents’ Love Boat anymore,” said Beci Mahnken, president and CEO of MEI-Travel and Mouse Fan Travel. “You have rock climbing walls and ice-skating rinks and princesses, and all kinds of things to do on board ships.” The race to add bigger and more elaborate features at sea has been intensifying in the years since the first megaship debuted more than three decades ago. Those ever-evolving offerings are paying off. The Haunted Mansion Parlor caters to adults aboard the new Disney Treasure, with its fan-favorite theme and specialty cocktails. Kent Phillips/Disney At her travel agency, Mahnken said she’s seeing demand for cruises at its highest in 25 years. She said there are spaces on large ships that cater to each age demographic, so family members can split up to find their own fun and rejoin each other later for quality family time. A report by industry group Cruise Lines International Association shows more than 30% of families traveling by cruise go with at least two generations, and 28% of them go with three to five generations. That intergenerational appeal seems to be helping drive a growing interest in cruise travel. The report also noted that 27% of passengers in the past two years were first-time cruisers, an increase of 12% compared with the prior two-year period. And there were a total of 31.7 million cruise passengers worldwide in 2023, almost 7% more than the last pre-pandemic year, 2019. The growth comes as the industry focuses simultaneously on reducing its environmental footprint. “We do know that ‘cruise’ is actually the most powerful segment of the travel space right now. It is growing, whereas other parts of the travel industry are not,” said Kyle Valenta, editor and senior SEO manager at Cruise Critic. A slide delivers kids to the Oceaneer Club aboard the Disney Treasure. Kent Phillips/Disney Disney doubles down It’s no wonder, then, that Disney is betting big on cruises. The Treasure is their sixth ship in the fleet, but the company announced in August an expansion to 13 ships around the world by 2031. Across the industry, “there’s about 56 new ships on order for the next four years alone,” Valenta said. “So Disney isn’t really doing anything out of the ordinary in general in the cruise business. What is interesting is that Disney has very quickly decided to place a really large bet on diving into ‘cruise’ and owning more of the cruise space.” Valenta said that is notable, coming from a company that is very cautious and strategic about what it does. He said it signals a confidence in the growth of cruising. Two of Disney’s upcoming ships will be sailing exclusively in Asia. The Disney Adventure, Disney’s biggest ship yet, will launch in December 2025 out of Singapore, with a capacity for more than 6,000 passengers. In 2029, the Oriental Land Company, which owns Tokyo Disney Resort, will launch a Disney cruise ship out of Japan. “It’s a smart move, because they already have Hong Kong Disney and Tokyo Disney … and Shanghai Disney,” Mahnken said. “They’re very popular. So to bring the brand over in terms of a cruise ship is again another brilliant move on their part. It’s a good risk.” Those familiar with the Disney brand know that it involves deeply immersive stories and themes. The Disney Treasure will embark on its maiden voyage in December. Kent Phillips/Disney On the Treasure, which takes its maiden voyage in December, Disney fans will find the first cruise ship bar themed to a Disney ride: the Haunted Mansion. The lounge has an aquarium with a special effect, so that those walking around it will see “ghost fish” appear and disappear. Disney told CNN that one of the original Imagineers of the Haunted Mansion attraction wanted to have an effect like that on the ride, but the technology wasn’t available in the 1960s. This effect is an homage to the original design team. Another upcoming ship, the Disney Destiny, is expected to begin sailing in November 2025 and will be themed to heroes and villains. A new Hercules musical will debut on board. Thomas Mazloum, president of Disney Signature Experiences, said Disney Cruise Line has the highest guest satisfaction ratings of his entire department, which also includes Disney theme parks, National Geographic expeditions, Aulani Resort in Hawaii and Disney Vacation Club. Occupancy is high on Disney ships, at 98% across the five existing ships in fiscal year 2024, according to a company fact sheet. “Forty percent of guests who cruise with us for the first time have told us that the only reason they cruise is because we happen to be in this space,” Mazloum said. Competition on the high seas Of course, everyone wants a piece of the same cruise passenger pie. Bigger players, such as Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean Group and Norwegian Cruise Line, have more ships in their fleet than Disney Cruise Line and have been in the business longer. In January, Royal Caribbean launched “Icon of the Seas,” the largest cruise ship in the world, with the largest ice arena at sea, the largest swimming pool at sea, six slides and the first family raft slides at sea. Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas is currently the world’s largest

‘Not your parents’ Love Boat’: The buzzy features bringing new passengers to cruise ships Read More »

Father of Australian teen who died in Laos urges government ‘to protect others’ from tainted alcohol

The father of an Australian teenager who died from methanol poisoning while on a backpacking holiday has issued a plea to the Laos government to fully investigate his daughter’s death and ensure such incidents don’t happen again. Bianca Jones, 19, was one of six foreign tourists who died in a suspected mass methanol poisoning in Vang Vieng, a popular backpacker destination in northern Laos. The deaths of two Australian teenagers, a British woman, an American man and two Danish women – and reports of others taken ill – prompted several Western nations to warn their citizens of the potentially fatal consequences of drinking tainted alcohol in the Southeast Asian country. Laos, an opaque communist state that tightly controls its media, remained silent on the deaths for over a week before issuing its first statement, but details are still scant, including who else remains in hospital, which nationalities are affected and how widespread the poisonings are. Mark Jones, Bianca’s father, urged the Laos government “to investigate this to the fullest extent, to make sure this incident doesn’t happen again,” CNN affiliate Nine News reported. “We can’t have the passing of our daughter … not lead to change to protect others,” he said. Bianca Jones was enjoying a backpacking trip to Laos with her friend when they became severely ill after a night out in Vang Vieng. The two friends were ultimately transferred to separate hospitals in neighboring Thailand where they spent several days fighting for their lives in critical condition. Related articleVang Vieng: What to know about the Laos backpacker town at center of suspected methanol poisonings Bianca Jones’ death was announced on Thursday, her friend Holly Bowles died the following day. “Our daughter was on the trip of a lifetime with one of her best mates,” Jones said, according to Nine News. “This was meant to be a trip full of lifelong memories, and was to be the first of many.” “Young men and women should be able to travel, create their own life experiences and be safe,” he added. “We’ll forever miss our beautiful girl and hope her loss of life has not been in vain.” British national Simone White, a 28-year-old lawyer, was also among those who died in Laos. In the wake of their daughters’ deaths, Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles’ parents have set up a GoFundMe page to help raise awareness of methanol poisoning, describing it “a silent but deadly risk that often claims lives without warning.” The fundraiser, which has already received more than $133,000, aims to assist the families with expenses in bringing their loved ones’ home, support prevention efforts and launch awareness campaigns to educate travelers, communities and businesses about the dangers of methanol poisoning. Methanol is an alcohol chemical commonly used in industrial solvents, cleaning products and fuel, though it can be added to alcoholic drinks either inadvertently through traditional brewing methods or deliberately – usually in the pursuit of profit. Though the complete circumstances of those deaths remains unclear, a statement from the official Lao News Agency (KPL) Friday reported the “suspected cause of the death is believed to be the consumption of tainted alcoholic beverages.” But Laos authorities have not given any indication of where and how tainted alcohol might have been served. On Saturday, Laos state media The Vientiane Times identified three others who died as Danish nationals Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, Frela Vennervald Sorensen, 21, and US citizen James Louis Hutson, 57. In an official statement, the Laos government said investigations were underway to find out the cause of the deaths and vowed to “bring the perpetrators to justice.” The government “is profoundly saddened over the loss of lives of foreign tourists in Vang Vieng District … and expresses its sincere sympathy and deepest condolences to the families of the deceased,” it said in a short statement. Citing a Laos Police Immigration Department report, The Vientiane Times said Laos authorities are “also aware of Australian media reports, which suggest that 12 other foreign tourists have been hospitalized.” At least five of the six tourists who died stayed at the same hostel in Vang Vieng, and part of the investigation has focused on reports the hostel had offered guests free shots of alcohol before they left for a night out. The hostel’s owner and manager have been detained but not charged, the Associated Press reported, citing an officer at Vang Vieng’s Tourism Police office and hostel staff. Backpacker town at the center of the suspected mass poisoning Thousands of people suffer from methanol poisoning every year, with most cases reported in Asia from people drinking bootlegged liquor or homemade alcohol. Many Southeast Asian nations have low safety standards, patchy regulatory enforcement and high levels of police corruption. Colin Ahearn, owner of the Facebook page “Just Don’t Drink Spirits in Bali,” which raises awareness about methanol poisoning in the region, said “this has been by far the biggest case I’ve ever come across.” Ahearn told CNN that the majority of methanol poisoning cases he sees are “industrial poisoning where it is at levels where you couldn’t possibly get through distillation.” “It’s an underground, criminal-type thing when you get this number of cases in one particular area,” he said, and was “a way to lower costs of doing business.” Laos, one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia, has been hit hard by skyrocketing inflation in recent years. Tourism is a key source of revenue for the country’s struggling economy. Foreign tourists float on tubes in a river in Vang Vieng, Laos, on November 19, 2024. Anupam Nath/AP A major part of that much-needed revenue comes from towns like Vang Vieng. It has long attracted crowds of foreign tourists as an idyllic stopping point between the capital Vientiane and UNESCO World Heritage-listed city of Luang Prabang. In the early- to mid-2000s, the picturesque rural town gained a notorious reputation on the Southeast Asian “banana pancake” trail for its wild parties and river tubing culture, along with the wide availability of cheap alcohol and illicit drugs. A

Father of Australian teen who died in Laos urges government ‘to protect others’ from tainted alcohol Read More »

Flight attendants share secrets to surviving holiday travel

Navigating airports and airplanes can be stressful at the best of times. As millions of travelers take to the skies over the busy holiday period, that inbuilt stress can hit new heights. But it doesn’t have to, just ask the world’s flight attendants. If anyone’s got surviving holiday travel down, it’s these aviation experts who fly every day, sometimes multiple times a day. To learn from their wisdom, CNN Travel chatted with Florida-based flight attendant Hunter Smith-Lihas, who works as a flight attendant on a major US airline, and veteran Australian flight-attendant-turned-psychologist Liz Simmons, to hear their tips, tricks and aviation secrets. Whether you’re flying home for Thanksgiving or heading abroad on a New Year’s Eve getaway, here’s a cabin crew’s guide to surviving the ups and downs of holiday air travel. Give yourself a buffer day If you’ve got a buffer day, a canceled flight doesn’t automatically equal canceled Christmas. Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters Everyone wants to maximize their vacation time, but flying at the last possible minute is a risky business, says Smith-Lihas. If you want to avoid missing the Thanksgiving meal or the clock striking midnight on New Year’s Eve, “give yourself at least one buffer day in between your travel and the event,” advises Smith-Lihas. Whether you’re traveling in the northern or southern hemisphere, there’s a potential for storms and weather delays, which can cause cancellations. If you’ve got a buffer day, a canceled flight doesn’t automatically equal canceled Christmas. “You at least still have that entire day to get rebooked on another flight,” says Smith-Lihas. Leave buffer time for layovers too With this same idea in mind, Smith-Lihas recommends travelers give themselves at least 90 minutes between connecting flights. Sure, the idea of sitting around in the airport waiting isn’t appealing. But missing your connecting flight is a much worse outcome. “I see a lot of people who book their layover flight connection times with less than 45 minutes,” says Smith-Lihas. “That is not enough time.” If your first flight is delayed, you can easily end up missing the second, says Smith-Lihas “especially if you’re connecting in a foreign country and you have to go through customs and immigration.” Some people go the other way and book multi-hour layovers with the thought they could explore a layover city in between flights. “Personally I have never been brave enough to do that,” says Smith-Lihas. “I just love to get into the airport and get out onto my next flight.” For cheap flights, avoid peak flying days and times Avoiding peak days and times can help you avoid crowds. Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images If you’re still considering a last-minute holiday getaway, there may still be some good deals out there, suggests Simmons. Her recommendation is to avoid peak flying days and times, like weekends, and search for midweek flights for better deals. “Midweek flying, you can really pick up some good deals during those days,” she says. Book directly via the airline There are many third-party travel websites out there, but Smith-Lihas says he always tells his friends to book flights directly via their airline of choice. He suggests third party platforms are more likely to automatically book travelers onto flights with super tight connection times. “And then also, I see people running into issues if they need to change something with their ticket, because the airline doesn’t have access to fix the problem,” he says. Check your passport expiration date well before you travel Don’t forget to check your passport expiration date before embarking on an international trip. Mike Blake/Reuters If you’re traveling internationally, don’t forget to check your passport expiration date before you travel. The last thing you want is to be caught out at the airport and turned away. Do it with plenty of time in hand and you’ll hopefully be able to renew it before the departure date, if needed. “A lot of countries do require that your passport is valid for six months or more,” says Smith-Lihas. “If you’ve had your passport for a couple years now, you definitely want to check that out.” Opt for the first flight of the day It might be tempting to book a post-work evening flight, but Simmons and Smith-Lihas both recommend getting the first flight of the day, if possible. “If you’re trying to dodge any delays, flying at the beginning of the day is beneficial, because any delays or cancellations will roll on throughout the day,” explains Simmons. “And if the flight is canceled, you at least still have that entire day to get rebooked on another flight,” adds Smith-Lihas. If there are cancellations, flight tracking apps can be helpful for keeping an eye on updates. Simmons likes FlightRadar, while Smith-Lihas is a fan of FlightAware. If you’re trying to dodge any delays, flying at the beginning of the day is beneficial, because any delays or cancellations will roll on throughout the day. Liz Simmons, former flight attendant “With FlightAware, you’re able to track exactly where your plane is. You can see what city your plane is coming from, what time it’s arriving, what time it’s going to be landing,” he says. “You can see the weather and route on that app. It has really up to date information about delays and cancellations. And I just like the fact that you can see exactly where your plane is coming from and what time it’s landing.” “It’s also worth checking the airline apps,” adds Simmons. “And generally the airline has up-to-date information on X and Facebook.” If you have kids, book flights around nap times New parents might find themselves traveling with young children for the first time around the holidays. Simmons, who is a mother of two, suggests that “if you can, book your flights around nap times to avoid sort of that overtired meltdown.” Bring supplies for your kids If you’re traveling with kids, make sure you’ve got all the supplies they need. Joshua Lott/Getty Images Simmons also recommends bringing snacks or books and any “comfort items”

Flight attendants share secrets to surviving holiday travel Read More »

Elon Musk floats buying MSNBC, but he’s not the only billionaire who may be interested

Elon Musk has called MSNBC “the utter scum of the Earth.” He has said the channel “peddles puerile propaganda.” Just a few days ago he said, “MSNBC is going down.” And now he is posting memes about buying the channel. Conventional wisdom holds that Musk — the world’s richest man and key Donald Trump ally — and his friends are just joking. But Musk’s posts are adding to the anxiety that MSNBC staffers are feeling about the reelection of Donald Trump and the recently announced spinoff of Comcast’s cable channels. I spent Sunday on the phone with sources to gauge what might be going on. I learned that more than one benevolent billionaire with liberal bonafides has already reached out to acquaintances at MSNBC to express interest in buying the cable channel. The inbound interest was reassuring, one of the sources said, since it showed that oppositional figures like Musk (who famously bought Twitter to blow it up) would not be the only potential suitors. But contrary to claims that Trump’s allies are posting on X, Comcast has not put a “for sale” sign on MSNBC’s door. If Comcast chief Brian Roberts really wanted to sell the liberal cable news channel, he could have done that already. Instead, he is moving MSNBC and a half dozen other cable channels into “SpinCo,” a pure-play cable programming company. The hope is that spinning off the pressured-but-profitable channels will boost shares of both Comcast and “SpinCo.” Comcast says the transaction will take about a year. At that point, could someone swoop in with a bid for MSNBC? It’s complicated. “SpinCo” is structured as a tax-free spinoff, and immediately divesting an asset would have tax implications that could forestall any such sale. “Typically, we would expect a two-year waiting period before any potential further strategic action by the SpinCo to preserve the tax-free nature of the spin although we believe there are scenarios where industry consolidation including SpinCo could happen earlier,” analyst Benjamin Swinburne of Morgan Stanley wrote in a note to investors last week. (Morgan Stanley is a financial advisor to Comcast.) Plus, “SpinCo” executives may well conclude that offloading MSNBC is not in the best interest of shareholders, since the channel’s loyal audience is a form of leverage in negotiations with cable distributors. Executives involved with the spinoff say they intend to be predators, not prey – buying new channels, not selling off old ones bit by bit. Selling MSNBC to win favor with the president-elect is simply not the plan. I have sensed quite a bit of enthusiasm at MSNBC about “SpinCo,” actually, because the new structure should allow for more investment into MSNBC, CNBC and the other brands. Musk’s allies pile on That said, Musk’s posts shouldn’t be ignored. He famously foreshadowed his pursuit of Twitter with a tweet that asked, “How much is it?” On Friday, he similarly asked of MSNBC, “How much does it cost?” He was responding to Donald Trump, Jr., who posted a meme that (falsely) said MSNBC is for sale and wrote, “Hey @elonmusk I have the funniest idea ever!!!” Joe Rogan jumped in and said, “If you buy MSNBC I would like Rachel Maddow’s job.” (He misspelled her name.) “I will wear the same outfit and glasses, and I will tell the same lies.” The trio’s fans ate it up, and Musk kept posting about the idea all weekend long, at one point promoting a homophobic meme that equated Maddow with Mark Cuban. By Sunday, Trump Jr. wrote, “I think I started something here. The amount of people that want this to happen is incredible!!!!” Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz replied, “I 100 percent want this to happen.” The mockery is the point, and maybe it’s nothing more than that. The ‘media capture’ model While Musk and his friends trade memes and crack each other up, there’s a serious undercurrent here. It’s known as “media capture.” This happened in Hungary when far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán’s “close allies also purchased private television and radio outlets to convert them into pro-government outlets,” CNN reported earlier this month. “Media capture” is a subset of what Protect Democracy executive director Ian Bassin calls “autocratic capture,” where “the government uses its power to enforce loyalty from the private sector.” On a recent episode of Vanity Fair’s “Inside the Hive,” Bassin said “I think we are in danger of seeing that happen across the American marketplace in all sorts of sectors.” Gábor Scheiring, a former member of the Hungarian parliament, wrote in a new essay for Politico Magazine that Orbán “consolidated media control through centralized propaganda, market pressure and loyal billionaires.” In the US, he wrote, “liberal-minded billionaires should not sit idly by as they did in Hungary, watching the right take over the media.” Would Cuban, a key billionaire surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris, have any interest in MSNBC? I asked him Sunday night. “I don’t think there is anything anyone can do to change the impact of linear TV news. So the answer is no,” Cuban replied. “People feel like MSNBC is not doing enough to rival Fox. I don’t see that. What could they do differently? Manufacture conspiracy theories? Go all in on crypto?” Cuban added: “I would rather promote Bluesky and hope it helps them aggregate audience, and create a network affect that gives agency to all viewpoints. I think with the addition of real time news and sports, it could give Twitter a run for its money.”

Elon Musk floats buying MSNBC, but he’s not the only billionaire who may be interested Read More »

‘Demure’ is Dictionary.com’s 2024 word of the year

“Demure,” a word that went viral over the summer, has been named Dictionary.com’s 2024 word of the year — beating out other contenders like “brainrot,” “brat,” and “weird.” In an announcement Monday, the site said that the word experienced a “meteoric rise in usage” in 2024 — up 1,200% between January and August — a spike that was largely attributed to TikToker and beauty influencer Jools Lebron’s popularization of the phrase “very demure, very mindful” in a series of satirical videos that shook the internet. “You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure. Very mindful,” Lebron says in one of her TikToks, donning a slightly pared-down version of her usual makeup of black, winged eyeliner and fake eyelashes. “The way I came to the interview is the way I go to the job. A lot of you girls go to the interview looking like Marge Simpson and go to the job looking like (her sisters) Patty and Selma. Not demure,” she adds, using characters from “The Simpsons” TV show to make her point. “Demure” has historically been used to describe discrete and reserved behavior, but “a new usage has spread through social media,” Dictionary.com said, highlighting the word’s recent associations with a person’s appearance and the way they act at work or in public places. “Every video is me just referencing me,” Lebron says in another video with the playful caption “obscurity of demurity,” where she explains the joke after users wondered if people should be judged on their appearances at work. “That’s the joke!” The satire is clearest in a clip in which the TikTok star asserts that she’s going to behave in a demure, mindful way while going out on the Las Vegas Strip. Her sober assertions that she’ll be back in bed by 10 p.m. are intercut with scenes of Lebron from later that night, giggling at a club and struggling to find her hotel room. Notable figures like Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, and “Drag Race” host RuPaul have all taken advantage of the trend to promote their brands. In photos from a recent campaign for her shapewear brand Skims, Kardashian used the phrase in the caption: “See how I take my bts pictures…very cutsie (sic), very mindful, very demure…not like the other girls” Taking to Instagram, Jennifer Lopez captioned a post promoting her cocktail line Delola with the caption “very demure…very mindful,” along with a video of her elegantly sipping. “See how I’m reading this book? Very demure. I don’t dog-ear pages, I put in a bookmark,” RuPaul said in a video promoting online bookstore Allstora. “And I don’t divulge the ending to my friends. Very considerate. And also, my cell phone is on do-not-disturb. Very demure. Very mindful.” Lebron also appeared in a video with makeup artist Patrick Ta, who was promoting a new skin foundation from his beauty line. Lebron, who is transgender, said that the fame from her “demure” videos has helped her finance the rest of her transition. “I used to be crazy and out of control and then I found some demurity, and along with that came success,” she said, on an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. She has now amassed more than 2.3 million followers on TikTok. Dictionary.com said that its decision to choose “demure” this year was informed by a deep analysis of social media trends, news headlines and words that transcended conversations online, seeping into everyday dialogue. The site’s word of the year in 2023 was “hallucinate” — a reference to the rise of chatbots and artificial intelligence that can often spur misinformation. “Brat,” another word that has taken on new meaning in 2024, was named Collins Dictionary’s word of 2024 for being one of the most talked about words on and offline.

‘Demure’ is Dictionary.com’s 2024 word of the year Read More »

Hong Kong is becoming a hub for financial crime, US lawmakers say

Hong Kong has become a center for money laundering and sanctions evasion under the tightening grip of Beijing, US lawmakers have warned, calling for a re-evaluation of America’s close business relationship with the Asian financial hub. In a letter to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Monday, bipartisan leaders of the House Select Committee on China demanded greater scrutiny from Washington of Hong Kong’s much prized financial sector, a pillar of the economy that’s home to many big US banks and accounts for more than one-fifth of the Chinese territory’s gross domestic product. Hong Kong has become a “global leader” in illicit practices, it said, including in the export of controlled Western technology to Russia, the creation of front companies to buy Iranian oil and the managing of “ghost ships” that engage in illegal trade with North Korea. Since Beijing imposed a national security law on the city in 2020, “Hong Kong has shifted from a trusted global financial center to a critical player in the deepening authoritarian axis of the People’s Republic of China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea,” the lawmakers said. “We must now question whether longstanding US policy towards Hong Kong, particularly towards its financial and banking sector, is appropriate,” they added. CNN has reached out to the US Treasury Department and the Hong Kong government for comment. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump revoked the special treatment Hong Kong had long enjoyed under US law, to punish Beijing for imposing the national security law on the once-outspoken city. The executive order effectively ended the city’s separate customs treatment from mainland China by suspending a 1992 law granting Hong Kong special economic status. Since then, dozens of Hong Kong-based companies have been hit by US sanctions for evading extensive measures imposed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, including the supply of critical dual‑use goods such as semiconductors. Hong Kong officials have previously said the city has no obligation to implement unilateral sanctions imposed by other countries – including when a mega yacht linked to a Russian oligarch sanctioned by the US, the European Union and the United Kingdom dropped anchor in the city in October 2022. The committee’s letter cited research published this year that shows nearly 40% of goods shipped from Hong Kong to Russia between August and December 2023 were high-priority items that are likely fueling Moscow’s production of military goods such as missiles and aircraft. The lawmakers asked Treasury Department officials to brief the committee on “the current status of American banking relationships with Hong Kong banks, how our policies have shifted to account for the changes in Hong Kong’s status and posture, and the measures the Treasury plans to implement to address these risks.” The letter, signed by Republican Rep. John Moolenaar, who chairs the committee, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the panel’s top Democrat, highlights the growing scrutiny on Hong Kong in the escalating great power rivalry between the US and China. It comes as Trump is poised to return to the White House with a cabinet stacked with China hawks, including Marco Rubio, who has been named secretary of state. Rubio, a fierce critic of Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong, has sponsored legislation that sanctioned Chinese and Hong Kong officials for alleged human rights violations in the city. He has also proposed a bill now being considered in Congress to let the secretary of state strip certification from Hong Kong’s economic and trade offices in the US. Trump has also named hedge fund executive Scott Bessent as his treasury secretary. Isaac Stone Fish, CEO of Strategy Risks, a business intelligence firm that focuses on China, said even if Yellen declines to act upon the letter, Bessent – who in a recent interview described Beijing as a “despotic regime” – is expected to take a more hawkish approach to China. “In fact, it appears like he’ll be the most hawkish Treasury Secretary since the 1970s. This has massive implications for US businesses with big exposure to Hong Kong,” Fish said. “Sadly, the idea of Hong Kong as autonomous from China is now a farce … US companies need to understand that their Hong Kong operations will likely fall under increased scrutiny.”

Hong Kong is becoming a hub for financial crime, US lawmakers say Read More »

A capital on lockdown, internet shutdowns and protesters clashing with police. What’s going on in Pakistan?

Thousands of supporters of Pakistan’s jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan broke through barricades around the capital Tuesday and marched into Islamabad, clashing with security forces and demanding his release. Authorities have enforced a security lockdown in the country, imposed internet blackouts and barricaded major roads leading into the capital to prevent protesters from entering, after Khan called for his supporters to march on parliament. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told reporters that protesters could remain on the outskirts of Islamabad, but threatened extreme measures if they entered the city. The latest protests came as Islamabad bolstered security for an official visit by Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who arrived in the capital on Monday for three days of talks with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Here’s what to know. What’s happening? Policemen fire tear gas shells to disperse supporters of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party during a protest to demand the release of former prime minister Imran Khan, in Islamabad on November 26. Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images A convoy of vehicles carrying protesters set off from the city of Peshawar Sunday as part of a “long march” with the aim of reaching the capital, about 180 kilometers (110 miles) away. Led by Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi and Ali Amin Gandapur, chief minister in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province – where Khan’s party remains in power – the protesters planned to hold a sit-in at D-Chowk, a large square near the country’s parliament. Protesters reached the outskirts of Islamabad Monday, defying a two-day security lockdown and a ban on rallies. Along the way, police fired tear gas to disperse the crowds and blocked roads with shipping containers to prevent them pushing through. Video showed a police post ablaze and several fires on the highway. Reuters reported 22 police vehicles were torched just outside Islamabad and elsewhere in Punjab province. At least one police officer was killed and several officers and demonstrators were injured in clashes, authorities said. Doctors at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences told CNN that five people had died, including four security officials and one civilian. Multiple sources told CNN a car rammed into them during the protests. By Tuesday morning, protesters had breached the city limits and a large crowd was marching past Zero Point, an interchange well inside the city. The convoy then moved on to the Blue Area, Islamabad’s business and commercial district, before arriving at D-Chowk. Soldiers could be seen outside key government buildings in Islamabad, including parliament, the Supreme Court and the Secretariat. Will the protests continue? Naqvi, Pakistan’s interior minister, said security forces had suffered bullet wounds, but police were “showing restraint” with protesters. He warned that if protesters crossed the line, security forces had been authorized to fire back, and he could take extra measures including imposing a curfew or deploying the military. A Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party’s supporter attempts to throw back tear gas shells fired by riot policemen in Hasan Abdal, Punjab province, Pakistan, on November 25. Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images Paramilitary soldiers stand guard at a blocked road leading towards the Red Zone area ahead of a protest rally by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in Islamabad on November 24. Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images “Rangers could open fire and there will be no protesters there after five minutes,” Naqvi said. “Anyone who reaches here will be arrested.” Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has accused the government of using excessive force, saying “bullets were fired at protesters” who it described as “peaceful.” The PTI said about two dozen protesters had been injured. CNN cannot independently verify the reports from either side and internet blackouts have compounded communication issues. In recent days, thousands of Khan supporters have been arrested in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces as authorities tried to prevent the protest march. Schools in Islamabad and nearby Rawalpindi closed on Monday and Tuesday, and officials and witnesses said all public transport between cities and terminals had been shut down, according to Reuters. PTI senior leader Kamran Bangash said protesters were “determined, and we will reach Islamabad,” adding that “we will overcome all hurdles one by one.” Why are they protesting? Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party’s supporters shout slogans as they protest to demand the release of former prime minister Imran Khan, in Hasan Abdal, on November 25. Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images Protesters are demanding the release of Khan and what his supporters deem political prisoners. They also want a new constitutional amendment to be repealed, which has increased the government’s power to select superior court justices and pick those judges to hear political cases. Khan’s supporters also believe February elections were not free and fair, calling it a “stolen mandate.” Khan was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in 2022 and has since led a popular campaign against the current government led by Prime Minister Sharif, accusing it of colluding with the military to remove him from office. The former star cricketer turned populist politician has been in jail for over a year and faces dozens of criminal cases ranging from corruption to leaking state secrets, all of which he and his party deny. Khan and the PTI – the country’s largest opposition party – remain popular, and his detention has turbocharged an already tense showdown between the country’s powerful military and his supporters. Khan has repeatedly urged his supporters to take to the streets demanding his release, and violence has broken out in several cities. A march to Islamabad from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in early October demanding Khan’s release was met with similar road blockades and mobile and internet cuts and ended in clashes with police. The protests come at a sensitive time for Pakistan, which has seen a wave of sectarian violence and separatist militant attacks that have killed dozens of people in recent months.

A capital on lockdown, internet shutdowns and protesters clashing with police. What’s going on in Pakistan? Read More »

More than 40,000 flee Port-au-Prince violence in 10 days: UN

UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP)— More than 40,000 people fled their homes in Port-au-Prince over just ten days this month as the Haitian capital was rocked by a spike in gang violence, the UN’s migration agency said Monday. The International Organization for Migration described it as the worst wave of displacement in two years, with a total of 40,965 people in Port-au-Prince on the move between November 11 and 20 — some for the second or third time. “The scale of this displacement is unprecedented since we began responding to the humanitarian crisis in 2022,” Gregoire Goodstein, the IOM chief in Haiti, said in a statement. For the past two weeks, several neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area have been the sites of violent clashes involving “Viv Ansanm” (“Living Together”), an alliance of gangs formed in February aimed at overthrowing then-Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who resigned in April. In total, over 700,000 people have been displaced in Haiti, the organization said. “This crisis is not just a humanitarian challenge. It is a test of our collective responsibility,” Goodstein added. Haiti has suffered from political instability for decades, with the latest security crisis linked to the presence of armed gangs that are accused of widespread murder, kidnapping and sexual violence.

More than 40,000 flee Port-au-Prince violence in 10 days: UN Read More »

‘No decision made on Karl Samuda’s successor’

KINGSTON, Jamaica— No decision has been made by the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) on who will replace Karl Samuda as its standard-bearer in St Andrew North Central Observer Online has been reliably informed. A report surfaced in the media on Sunday that Senior Advisor in the tourism ministry, Delano Seiveright has been confirmed as Samuda’s successor as the party’s standard-bearer in the constituency. However, Observer Online has confirmed that no decision has been taken by the JLP. The Jamaica Labour Party’s constitution reportedly requires sign-off from the party’s Operations Council before standard-bearers are confirmed. Seiveright was earlier this week appointed as deputy constituency chairman for North St Andrew North Central following a vote by delegates. He replaces a former member of the Karl Samuda-led executive who retired. JLP General Secretary, Dr Horace Chang told a media briefing on Thursday last week that Samuda would not be contesting the next General Election. Samuda, who is 82 years old, later confirmed the development but said he was surprised by the timing of Dr Chang’s announcement.

‘No decision made on Karl Samuda’s successor’ Read More »

Sculptures of Jamaican icons off to World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan

KINGSTON, Jamaica— Sculptures of Jamaican superstars, the late reggae icon Bob Marley and sprint legend Usain Bolt are now on their way to the World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan. As the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) prepares for World Expo 2025, S Hotels Jamaica, which commissioned the sculptures, has allowed the JTB to use the two statutes for one year on loan at the expo. These statues were completed by the talented sculptor Scheed Cole and are permanent attractions in Montego Bay, Jamaica. World Expo 2025 will be held under the theme: ‘Designing Future Society for Our Lives’. It is one of the oldest and largest international events, held every five years since 1851. A global platform for achievement, innovation, collaboration and cooperation, Jamaica will be among more than 150 participating countries and 25 international organizations in Osaka. Danielle Shaw, manager at S Hotels, Kingston said the sculptures symbolize the extraordinary cultural and athletic legacy of our nation. “Usain Bolt represents the boundless energy and determination of Jamaica, while Bob Marley embodies the enduring power of our music and message of peace,” Shaw said. “This partnership with the Jamaica Tourist Board is not just about showcasing our icons, it’s about showing the world the richness of Jamaica, a destination where culture and hospitality blend seamlessly,” she added. S Hotels Jamaica has become a cultural attraction in the hospitality sector. Bolt and Marley are among several life-size statues commissioned by the group. The Japan Association for the 2025 expo has projected that more than 25 million visitors will attend the expo, including more than 3.5 million international visitors. Jamaica will participate under the ‘Connecting Lives’ sub theme and will invite expo visitors to its pavilion; ‘Out of Many, One People-Let’s Link Up’. The Jamaica pavilion will promote collaboration and unity in a global and inter connected environment. Commissioner General of Section, Jamaica Pavilion Expo 2025 and Promotions and Events Officer at the Jamaica Tourist Board, Maureen Smith predicted that Usain Bolt and Bob Marley will captivate the global audience in Osaka and inspire millions at the World Expo, carrying the spirit of Jamaica across continents. “We want to promote sustainable tourism, achieving our sustainable development goals, and how we are progressing towards Vision 2030. Tourism is a very important factor for that. Eighty per cent of the guests at the Expo will be Japanese and we want to ensure that we connect with them,” Smith said. “The statues will be an appealing aspect of the presence of Jamaica and to have them in the same space will speak volumes. People often associate Jamaica with the talent that we have, and Bob Marley and Usain Bolt are world recognised names, that people associate with music and athletics,” Smith added.

Sculptures of Jamaican icons off to World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan Read More »

‘A bad move from every angle’ says economist Damien King regarding PM’s GCT cut on electricity

Economist Dr Damien King has described Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ announced 53 per cent cut in the General Consumption Tax (GCT) on electricity as “a bad move from every angle”. Set to take effect after the next Budget in March 2025, the GCT on the electricity component of a customer’s bill will move from 15 per cent to seven per cent. Holness made the announcement as he addressed the public session of the 81st annual conference of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) at the National Arena in St Andrew on Sunday. Some public commentators have already said the prime minister’s announcement is a mere general election ploy with the JLP trailing the Opposition People’s National Party in public opinion polls. The next general election is constitutionally due by September next year. King pointed out that GCT on electricity is the “perfect tax”. He said it was impossible to evade, progressive since rich people pay more and “cheap to collect since TAJ (Tax Administration Jamaica) does nothing (to enforce the tax)”. According to King “this will also disincentivise the transition to solar. A bad move from every angle”. In making the announcement, the prime minister noted that up to 30 per cent of Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) customers were unable to pay their electricity bills which contributes to electricity theft. He said JPS will also remove the non-tax threshold and replace it with an “incentivised, compatible rebate of GCT for persons who use 200 megawatts of electricity or less per month”. This, he said, will allow for the roll out of pre-paid electricity purchase which the JPS will be required to implement nationally, but particularly in vulnerable communities.

‘A bad move from every angle’ says economist Damien King regarding PM’s GCT cut on electricity Read More »

Cowboy Couture @ Mouttet Mile

Many horse-racing enthusiasts and Mouttet Mile lovers are gearing up for another staging come Saturday December 7, at Caymanas Park. As the excitement and anticipation builds, a lot of thought is being put into not only first past the post, but, too, the right outfit for the occasion. With this year’s theme being Western Style, Tuesday Style Fashion (TSF) is removing all the guesswork and has come up with its own list of must-haves. First things first, though, Beyonce’s Texas Hold ‘Em on speed dial as we turn the pages of our look book that features Mouttet Mile models Debbie Bissoon and Tafari Forbes in denim, sturdy boots and wide-brimmed hats. Western wear typically incorporates one or more of the following: Western button-down shirts with pearl snap fasteners and vaquero design accents, blue jeans, Stetson hat, a leather belt with conchos and large belt buckles and cowboy boots. None of these will break your budget or should be difficult to find. Accessories? Yes, please; the sky’s the limit here! Jazzing these up with chunky jewellery, bolo ties and neckerchiefs can add the right flair to your outfit. See you at the races! Some of the pieces were sourced from Resortwear by Eroleen. Others sourced from the models’ personal collection.

Cowboy Couture @ Mouttet Mile Read More »

IT’S OFFICIAL!

JAAA confirms renewal of Puma partnership JAMAICA Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) has confirmed renewal of its sponsorship agreement with German sporting gear brand Puma. This confirmation follows a report first made by the Jamaica Observer earlier this month that a deal was agreed upon. This comes months after reports, also by the Observer, that JAAA was approached by rival sporting gear brand adidas to enter into a partnership when the JAAA’s existing deal with Puma ends in December. President Garth Gayle describes the new deal as having “far exceeded that of their competitors”. The comments were said to have been made at Saturday’s annual general meeting (AGM) held at Jamaica College, where Gayle was re-elected unopposed to serve a second-consecutive term, along with his executives. A release sent on behalf of JAAA said Gayle made the announcement during his address to the AGM, describing it as “another highlight from the past year”. Without going into any details about the value or duration of the sponsorship, the release said, “The president expressed gratitude for Puma’s unwavering support, particularly through the pandemic, and the company’s significant contribution to various grass roots initiatives, high school sponsorships, and national events like the Gibson Relays and the boys’ & girls’ championships.” Gayle is understood to have said in his address that, “Puma’s commitment far exceeded that of their competitors, ensuring that the JAAA remains well-equipped to support its athletes and continue its mission of excellence.” The Observer has seen a counter proposal from adidas valuing over US$40 million (over $6 billion) over eight years between 2025-2032, an increase from another offer of US$26,000,000 (over $4 billion) that was said to have been made in 2013 and was to have also been for eight years. The adidas proposal offered an “annual retainer of US$2.5 million (around $397 million)” included in a budget of just under US$3 million ($476 million), in addition to products worth up to another US$2.13 million ($338 million) per year. The Observer received no response from the JAAA when a comment was sought.

IT’S OFFICIAL! Read More »