State senate passes bill as its sponsor suggests shooting someone is more effective and humane than other methods
Firing squads could become Idaho’s primary execution method under a bill headed to the governor’s desk this week.
The Idaho senate passed the bill on Wednesday, and if signed by governor Brad Little, it will take effect next year.
Continue reading...Group claims regulator signed off on ‘broken system’ making customers pay for industry’s neglect
An environmental group is to take legal action against Ofwat, the water regulator, accusing it of unlawfully making customers pay for decades of neglect by the water industry.
River Action will file the legal claim this month, arguing that bill rises for customers that have been approved by the regulator could be used to fix infrastructure failures that should have been addressed years ago.
Continue reading...Survey reveals senior officials think changes will do little to address local authorities’ dire financial crisis
Ministers’ plans to shake up the structure of English local government by merging councils are “ill-thought-out”, “insane” and a “bizarre diversion” that will fail to deliver savings, according to a survey of town hall leaders.
The depth of unhappiness with the plans is revealed in an annual poll of senior councillors and executives, most of whom said the changes would be costly, time-consuming and do little to address the dire financial crisis facing councils.
Continue reading...US president tells group to ‘release all of the Hostages now ... or it is OVER for you’ as White House enters negotiations
Donald Trump has posted a fresh ultimatum to Hamas, telling the group to “release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you”.
“‘Shalom Hamas’ means Hello and Goodbye,” he wrote in a social media post on Wednesday, in an apparent reference to the beginning of direct talks with the group.
Continue reading...Officials say slashing of US Department for International Development leaves power vacuum for adversaries
Hundreds of diplomats at the state department and US Agency for International Development have written to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, protesting against the dismantling of USAid, saying it undermines US leadership and security and leaves power vacuums for China and Russia to fill.
In a cable expected to be filed with the department’s internal “dissent channel”, which allows diplomats to raise concerns about policy anonymously, the diplomats said the Trump administration’s 20 January freeze on almost all foreign aid also endangers American diplomats and forces overseas while putting at risk the lives of millions abroad that depend on US assistance.
Continue reading...Kingsley Wilson cast doubt on circumstances of death of Leo Frank, in echo of white supremacist talking point
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has condemned a past social media post by the Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson that disputed the innocence of Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman whom most historians agree was wrongfully convicted of killing a 13-year-old factory worker and lynched in 1915 during a wave of antisemitism in the US.
“Leo Frank raped & murdered a 13-year-old girl. He also tried to frame a Black man for his crime,” Wilson wrote on X in response to an August 2024 tweet by the ADL marking the 109th anniversary of Frank’s lynching. “The ADL turned off the comments because they want to gaslight you.”
Continue reading...Study shows that male partners can help in limiting recurrence of the condition afflicting almost one in three women
Like almost one in three women, Hanae has developed bacterial vaginosis (BV) – a condition when the normal healthy bacteria in the vagina are replaced by an overgrowth of other mixed bacteria.
When she got it for first time in 2021, she took the standard treatment of antibiotics, only for the condition to come back weeks later. “It came back time and time again, no matter how many times I got antibiotic treatment,” said Hanae, who lives in Melbourne.
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