casino game 21 codycross Liam Dann: No more economic booms - RBNZ’s grim warning as productivity woes come to a head

Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26. Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before quitting in August. He was well-regarded by colleagues at the San Francisco company, where a co-founder this week called him one of OpenAI's strongest contributors who was essential to developing some of its products.Lawmakers edge closer to deal on government funding

Itron Marks Significant Milestone of 50th Temetra Deployment in AustraliaSaints QB situation remains cloudy as matchup with Washington nears

Shoppers bemused as Easter eggs hit shop shelves before New Year’s Eve

Woolworths Says Strike by 1,500 Workers Won’t Disrupt Christmas

Women will for the first time make up a majority of state legislators in Colorado and New Mexico next year, but at least 13 states saw losses in female representation after the November election, according to a count released Thursday by the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics. While women will fill a record number of state legislative seats in 2025, the overall uptick will be slight, filling just over third of legislative seats. Races in some states are still being called. "We certainly would like to see a faster rate of change and more significant increases in each election cycle to get us to a place where parity in state legislatures is less novel and more normal," said Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the CAWP, which is a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. As of Wednesday, at least 2,450 women will serve in state legislatures, representing 33.2% of the seats nationwide. The previous record was set in 2024 with 2,431 women, according to the CAWP. People are also reading... Recap: Here's how Joey Graziadei will win 'Dancing with the Stars' At the courthouse, Nov. 16, 2024 Zitel bound over to district court in death of child Kidnapping in Nebraska prompted police chase that ended with 3 dead on I-29 in Missouri Beatrice native's latest film gets special engagement in hometown BPS mini-marts offer help They fell in love with Beatrice. So they opened a store in downtown. Chamberlain among seven inducted into Nebraska Baseball HOF Inmate cited for damaging video system Just Askin': Dana Holgorsen noncommittal on future, ranking a big week for Nebraska Athletics Beatrice High School first-quarter honor roll Micheal J's to reopen Former Daily Sun publisher Thomas dies Historical society appoints board members, elects officers At the courthouse, Nov. 9, 2024 The number of Republican women, at least 851, will break the previous record of 815 state lawmakers set in 2024. "But still, Republican women are very underrepresented compared to Democratic women," Debbie Walsh, director of the CAWP, said. From left, House Maj. Whip Reena Szczepanski, D-Santa Fe, Rep. D. Wonda Johnson, D-Church Rock and Rep. Cristina Parajon, D-Albuquerque, talk July 18 before the start of a special session, in Santa Fe, N.M. States with gains By the most recent count, 19 states will have increased the number of women in their state legislatures, according to the CAWP. The most notable increases were in New Mexico and Colorado, where women will for the first time make up a majority of lawmakers. In New Mexico, voters sent an 11 additional women to the chambers. Colorado previously attained gender parity in 2023 and is set to tip over to a slight female majority in the upcoming year. The states follow Nevada, which was the first in the country to see a female majority in the legislature following elections in 2018. Next year, women will make up almost 62% of state lawmakers in Nevada, far exceeding parity. Women in California's Senate will make up the chamber's majority for the first time in 2025 as well. Women also made notable gains in South Dakota, increasing its number by at least nine. Four of South Carolina's Sister Senators, from left, Sen. Margie Bright Matthews, D-Walterboro, Sen. Mia McLeod, I-Columbia, Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, and Sen. Penry Gustafson, R-Camden, stand in front of the Senate on June 26 with their John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award in Columbia, S.C. States that lost At least thirteen states emerged from the election with fewer female lawmakers than before, with the most significant loss occurring in South Carolina. This year, the only three Republican women in the South Carolina Senate lost their primaries after they stopped a total abortion ban from passing. Next year, only two women, who are Democrats, will be in the 46-member Senate. No other state in the country will have fewer women in its upper chamber, according to the CAWP. Women make up 55% of the state's registered voters. Half the members in the GOP dominated state were elected in 2012 or before, so it will likely be the 2040s before any Republican woman elected in the future can rise to leadership or a committee chairmanship in the chamber, which doles out leadership positions based on seniority. A net loss of five women in the legislature means they will make up only about 13% of South Carolina's lawmakers, making the state the second lowest in the country for female representation. Only West Virginia has a smaller proportion of women in the legislature. West Virginia stands to lose one more women from its legislative ranks, furthering its representation problem in the legislature where women will make up just 11% of lawmakers. Why it matters Many women, lawmakers and experts say that women's voices are needed in discussions on policy, especially at a time when state government is at its most powerful in decades. Walsh, director of the CAWP, said the new changes expected from the Trump administration will turn even more policy and regulation to the states. The experiences and perspectives women offer will be increasingly needed, she said, especially on topics related to reproductive rights, healthcare, education and childcare. "The states may have to pick up where the federal government may, in fact, be walking away," Walsh said. "And so who serves in those institutions is more important now than ever." 20 political cartoons draw out Donald Trump's win November 7, 2024: Trump Victory Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter.It's almost Christmas once again! or signup to continue reading And this year there were plenty of significant new model launches in Australia, and also many that were delayed. There were also several new auto brands that landed Down Under in 2024, so it's no surprise there was unprecedented interest in our new model tests. published almost 500 new car reviews this year. Here are the five top-viewed new car reviews we brought you in 2024. . Surprise, surprise. The Toyota RAV4 Hybrid is yet again the subject of our top-viewed review, which makes perfect sense since the RAV4 is also with little more than a week to go. Yes, the popular mid-sized SUV is almost certain to topple the Ford Ranger as the nation's favourite new car, following the drastic improvement in supplies of this sought-after model. A few years ago the wait list stretched out over three years, but now you 'only' need to wait around six months for a new RAV4. Most recently, James Wong tested the flagship Edge Hybrid AWD variant, which is currently priced from $58,360 before on-roads. He praised Toyota for reducing wait times, but he also cited other new hybrid mid-sized SUV options including the Hyundai Tucson Hybrid, Kia Sportage Hybrid and Honda CR-V e:HEV. Honda's latest generation model range has brought new levels of quality to the brand, and its smallest model was our second most popular review this year. William Stopford tested the flagship HR-V e:HEV L, which at the time was the brand's cheapest hybrid model. Honda has since introduced a more affordable HR-V eHEV X hybrid trim level, priced at $39,900 drive-away. His assessment was that it's quiet and refined, and that its hybrid powertrain is sweet. But he also noted that it runs out of puff on steeper hills, and the fact the HR-V is only a four-seater in Australia. The Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series has attracted a lot of attention since its reveal in 2021, and it continues to do so three years later. Scott Collie reviewed the almost top-spec LandCruiser 300 GR Sport, which is the most off-road focussed variant available and currently priced from $144,791 before on-roads. Toyota has since detailed an update for the LandCruiser 300 Series, which will bring a range of safety and technology upgrades for Aussie buyers by June 2025. Scott praised the LandCruiser 300 GR Sport for being an impressive full-size off-road SUV, and said its new twin-turbo diesel V6 is a solid replacement for its long-running predecessor's oil-burning V8. But he also pointed out that its interior technology is not up to scratch, given this LC300's $145k price tag. Honda's largest SUV was the subject of our fourth most-read review this year. William Stopford reviewed the top-spec CR-V e:HEV RS, which is now priced from $60,400 drive-away. This is the only hybrid variant in the range and it's powered by a 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol-electric powertrain producing 135kW of power and 335Nm of torque. Claimed fuel consumption is 5.5L/100km. William noted that the new-generation CR-V isn't cheap, but it's more enjoyable to drive than a RAV4 Hybrid, rides better and has a very refined cabin with plenty of practical storage spaces. If it's starting to seem like our top-viewed reviews concern only Toyota and Honda models, here's something different to break up the Japanese brand monopoly. The Ford Ranger was Australia's top-selling vehicle last year and there are good reasons for that. In January this year, Matt Campbell reviewed the popular Ranger Wildtrak V6, which is currently priced from $74,840 before on-road costs. He said the Australian-developed, diesel V6-powered 4×4 is a "damn-near perfect" family dual-cab ute, thanks to its strong powertrain and great driving dynamics, plus its refined cabin with high-tech safety and multimedia features. Content originally sourced from: Advertisement Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date. We care about the protection of your data. Read our . Advertisement

Alexander: Is diminished USC-UCLA game another reminder of what we’ve lost?

UN General Assembly calls for ‘unconditional’ ceasefire in Gaza

President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on the BRICS group nations if they undercut the US dollar. For the latest news, bookmark The South African website’s dedicated section for FREE-to-read content “We require a commitment... that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty US Dollar or, they will face 100 percent Tariffs,” Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social website, referring to the grouping that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and others. This developing news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.SUKKUR: President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday vowed to keep up the Bhutto family’s legacy of public service, dedicated to improving the socio-economic well-being of the nation. Addressing the inauguration of Ziauddin Hospital in Sukkur, the President hailed the inauguration of the state-of-the-art hospital as a transformative moment for Sukkur and its surrounding areas. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Balochistan Chief Minister Mir Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti, Dr Asim Hussain, Sindh provincial ministers, MNAs, MPAs, hospital establishment, and people from different walks of life attended the event. President Zardari lauded Dr Asim Hussain and the Ziauddin Hospital management for their efforts in establishing a facility equipped with cutting-edge technology and a team of highly skilled professionals. The President reflected on his personal involvement in encouraging Ziauddin Hospital to invest in Sukkur, highlighting the need for such initiatives to uplift healthcare standards in underserved areas. He said that the Government of Sindh would also bear the expenses for the establishment of a university at the Ziauddin Hospital Sukkur Campus. He stated that he had also donated his personal land for establishing Dr Ziauddin Hospital’s campus in Hyderabad. The President also highlighted that Rohri canal was being lined from its beginning and Rs15 billion would be spent annually in this regard. He said that the funds generated from the trading of carbon credits in the international market were being used for the lining of the Rohri Canal project. The President said that the hospital exemplified Dr Asim Hussain and his family’s unwavering commitment to providing quality healthcare services to the people. He highlighted that Dr Ziauddin was a member of the Central Legislative Assembly before Pakistan’s independence and an associate of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and now his family was carrying forward his legacy. President Asif Ali Zardari highlighted the significance of the university campus, where medical students can pursue higher education. He emphasized that providing top-notch healthcare facilities to the public was a top priority and reiterated his commitment to ensuring that the people of Pakistan have access to quality medical care. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah welcomed the establishment of Dr. Ziauddin Hospital in Sukkur, terming it a significant milestone in the province’s healthcare landscape. He praised the Dr. Ziauddin Network for setting up hospitals and educational institutions in Sindh, and expressed his desire to see the network expand to Hyderabad. He congratulated the people of Sukkur on having access to a world-class hospital, which will not only benefit the local population but also provide quality medical care to surrounding areas. He assured that the Sindh government is committed to providing full support for the establishment of another hospital in Hyderabad. The chief minister also announced that a separate road is being constructed to connect the Dr. Ziauddin Hospital to the Sukkur Airport, which will be completed soon. He noted that the hospital’s establishment will further enhance the healthcare facilities available to the people of Sukkur, which already has several major hospitals. Murad also appreciated Dr. Asim Hussain’s announcement to establish world-class schools in Sindh, calling it a welcome move. He assured that the Sindh government will provide full cooperation in this endeavor. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );

Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26. Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before quitting in August. He was well-regarded by colleagues at the San Francisco company, where a co-founder this week called him one of OpenAI’s strongest contributors who was essential to developing some of its products. “We are devastated to learn of this incredibly sad news and our hearts go out to Suchir’s loved ones during this difficult time,” said a statement from OpenAI. Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment on Nov. 26 in what police said “appeared to be a suicide. No evidence of foul play was found during the initial investigation.” The city’s chief medical examiner’s office confirmed the manner of death to be suicide. His parents Poornima Ramarao and Balaji Ramamurthy said they are still seeking answers, describing their son as a “happy, smart and brave young man” who loved to hike and recently returned from a trip with friends. Balaji grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and first arrived at the fledgling AI research lab for a 2018 summer internship while studying computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He returned a few years later to work at OpenAI, where one of his first projects, called WebGPT, helped pave the way for ChatGPT. “Suchir’s contributions to this project were essential, and it wouldn’t have succeeded without him,” said OpenAI co-founder John Schulman in a social media post memorializing Balaji. Schulman, who recruited Balaji to his team, said what made him such an exceptional engineer and scientist was his attention to detail and ability to notice subtle bugs or logical errors. “He had a knack for finding simple solutions and writing elegant code that worked,” Schulman wrote. “He’d think through the details of things carefully and rigorously.” Balaji later shifted to organizing the huge datasets of online writings and other media used to train GPT-4, the fourth generation of OpenAI’s flagship large language model and a basis for the company’s famous chatbot. It was that work that eventually caused Balaji to question the technology he helped build, especially after newspapers, novelists and others began suing OpenAI and other AI companies for copyright infringement. He first raised his concerns with The New York Times, which reported them in an October profile of Balaji . He later told The Associated Press he would “try to testify” in the strongest copyright infringement cases and considered a lawsuit brought by The New York Times last year to be the “most serious.” Times lawyers named him in a Nov. 18 court filing as someone who might have “unique and relevant documents” supporting allegations of OpenAI’s willful copyright infringement. His records were also sought by lawyers in a separate case brought by book authors including the comedian Sarah Silverman, according to a court filing. “It doesn’t feel right to be training on people’s data and then competing with them in the marketplace,” Balaji told the AP in late October. “I don’t think you should be able to do that. I don’t think you are able to do that legally.” He told the AP that he gradually grew more disillusioned with OpenAI, especially after the internal turmoil that led its board of directors to fire and then rehire CEO Sam Altman last year. Balaji said he was broadly concerned about how its commercial products were rolling out, including their propensity for spouting false information known as hallucinations. But of the “bag of issues” he was concerned about, he said he was focusing on copyright as the one it was “actually possible to do something about.” He acknowledged that it was an unpopular opinion within the AI research community, which is accustomed to pulling data from the internet, but said “they will have to change and it’s a matter of time.” He had not been deposed and it’s unclear to what extent his revelations will be admitted as evidence in any legal cases after his death. He also published a personal blog post with his opinions about the topic. Schulman, who resigned from OpenAI in August, said he and Balaji coincidentally left on the same day and celebrated with fellow colleagues that night with dinner and drinks at a San Francisco bar. Another of Balaji’s mentors, co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, had left OpenAI several months earlier , which Balaji saw as another impetus to leave. Schulman said Balaji had told him earlier this year of his plans to leave OpenAI and that Balaji didn’t think that better-than-human AI known as artificial general intelligence “was right around the corner, like the rest of the company seemed to believe.” The younger engineer expressed interest in getting a doctorate and exploring “some more off-the-beaten path ideas about how to build intelligence,” Schulman said. Balaji’s family said a memorial is being planned for later this month at the India Community Center in Milpitas, California, not far from his hometown of Cupertino. —————- EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. or Canada is available by calling or texting 988. —————–

Behind Donald Trump's Win, The Misplaced Optimism Of The White Liberal

Shoppers bemused as Easter eggs hit shop shelves before New Year’s EveBearettes pull away from Lincoln County

Wray Continues Pattern Of Honoring Institutions Even As Trump Burns Them DownYoung men swung to the right for Trump after a campaign dominated by masculine appealsIn the harsh light of his cell, alone and near death, Simon Cartwright pressed the intercom. Water, he pleaded. He needed water. “Please, please, just give me a chance, please,” he said, according to call logs provided to the coroner. On the other end of buzzer, the prison guards were getting irritated. They’d shut off the water to Simon’s cell deliberately. It was being used as a bargaining chip, an inquest would later find, by guards who had a limited understanding of his severe and untreated mental illness. Simon . “Yeah, this is really entertaining actually,” a guard joked after one of Simon’s frantic pleas. “Yeah, keep buzzing up actually – this is keeping me entertained.” They found Simon the next day, naked on a mattress in the middle of his cell. He was cold to the touch. Despite being in an observation cell designed for 24/7 surveillance at Sydney’s Silverwater jail, rigor mortis had set in by the time anyone realised he was dead. A nurse who had rushed to the cell, responding to a request for medical assistance, wrote in her report that Simon had been dead for a “prolonged period”. His death was needless, a coroner would find. He was suffering from chronic peptic ulcer disease and had an ulcer in his small intestine. It was highly treatable. A drug called pantoprazole, administered at any point before the 25th day of his 30-day stay in Silverwater, would most likely have saved him, according to a gastroenterologist expert witness. But prison staff inexplicably missed all signs pointing to serious illness. Simon was extremely thin, to the point of malnourishment, and was recorded on CCTV clutching himself in pain and collapsing to the ground, although this was not observed by guards. He told guards he was struggling to breathe. Prison health staff had failed to make even a cursory check of their own records. Those records showed he had a history of gastric ulcers, infection and vomiting blood. Instead they wrongly answered “no” to a prompt of “history of gastrointestinal conditions?” during Simon’s intake assessment. The untreated ulcer penetrated surrounding organs in the weeks that followed, according to autopsy notes provided to the inquest. Bacteria entered Simon’s bloodstream and he went into septic shock, dying sometime on 19 September 2021. His grieving family have spent the years since trying to find answers. Their journey has led them to an incontrovertible truth – one that sits at the foundation of everything that went wrong. Simon should not have been in Silverwater. He should have been in hospital. Sixteen days before his death a psychiatrist had invoked the state’s mental health laws to order Simon be transferred to hospital for treatment for his unmedicated schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. No bed could be found, something the coroner would describe as a “gross systemic failure”. He was locked up for a month in a cell designed to be used for no more than 48 hours, and mocked by guards who withheld water from an emaciated man as punishment for behaviour they did not understand. “It was torture,” Simon’s sister Clare tells Guardian Australia. In her hospital bed at Lingard Private, in the beachside Newcastle suburb of Merewether, Simon’s elderly mother, Frances, had reason to smile. It was her birthday, 20 September 2021, and two of her three daughters, Michele and Alison, had just turned up. She thought they had managed to bypass Covid restrictions to pay her a surprise birthday visit. One look at their faces changed her mind. “I thought they had been given special permission as visitors were not allowed,” Frances wrote. “However, on closer look realised they were to give me bad news and I immediately knew it was Simon – a mother’s premonition.” At that stage, Frances didn’t even know her son had been in prison. None of his family did. Alison was the first to find out. Police officers told her about her brother’s incarceration when they knocked on the door of her Gosford home to tell her he was dead. The next day she and Michele travelled north to see their mother. The sisters could offer no explanation of what had happened. “That was the worst thing I have ever had to do,” Michele says. It was the beginning of a never-ending period of grief for Frances. The news triggered a desperate search for answers. Information was not forthcoming. The New South Wales government took months to release details. In December Justice Health, which runs health services at NSW correctional facilities, briefed the family on the results of its internal serious adverse event review. This raised more questions than it gave answers. The family wanted to know, among other things, why there were huge stretches of “unaccounted” hours where no recorded observations were made of Simon, and why more wasn’t done to investigate his physical health. Frances wrote a furious letter to the then corrections minister, Geoff Lee. She described her son’s treatment as worse than that of a dog. She asked for a more thorough investigation. “To be told that Simon had been found dead at 8pm on the 19th was one of the worst moments of my life,” she wrote to the minister on 27 January 2022. “Just thinking of Simon dying all alone with no family was unbearable.” She received an automatic receipt, promising the minister would respond within 28 days. When the 28 days passed without reply, Frances sent the letter again. She received nothing back. Simon was a smart kid, his sisters agree. They remember a child who loved music and loved to dance. He grew up in Tamworth, the youngest of six children. His closest sibling was 10 years his senior. Frances always told the kids it made raising Simon a dream. She had five pairs of hands eager to help. “He was a gorgeous little baby who everyone spoiled from day one,” Clare tells Guardian Australia. “He was a really loved kid. And he was very smart, probably because he had all his siblings pushing him along. He was bright, really friendly, outgoing social boy.” Things changed in his teenage years after he began using cannabis. “It just changed him, it changed the way he looked at life,” Clare said. “Keeping him at school was difficult, he just struggled.” The strain on his parents became overwhelming. His siblings tried to help. At one point Clare brought him up to the Gold Coast for rehab. She lost count of the times the family set him up in an apartment, furnishing it for him, and hoping for stability. “I don’t know what the percentage was of good to bad,” she said. “But there were lots of years where he was stable and he was still, sometimes, mentally challenged with his emotions.” In 2008, at age 28, Simon was diagnosed with schizophrenia and in 2013 he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. When his parents moved from Tamworth to Wollongong, Simon followed, getting a unit in a public housing estate. “The move to Wollongong was the start of some more serious times when he was in a mental health hospital and then back out,” Clare said. “Then the cycle of good and bad would begin.” In July 2020 a new psychiatrist at Shellharbour hospital abruptly departed from the decade-long diagnoses of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, reclassifying Simon’s condition as a personality disorder and polysubstance use disorder. The antipsychotic medications he had been taking for years were discontinued. Simon’s longstanding psychologist expressed concern about the sudden change. Records tendered to the inquest show the psychologist warned that Simon would become a problem for police and “potentially could go to gaol” if his psychiatric condition was not properly managed. That prediction was realised just six months later. In January 2021 Simon lit a fire in a neighbour’s apartment and was remanded briefly in Silverwater. At that point, prison staff noted his history of gastric ulcers and infection, vomiting blood and weight loss, obtaining records from two hospitals that had treated him. They had prescribed pantoprazole. All of these records would be available to prison health staff seven months later, when Simon returned to Silverwater. After 13 days on remand, the court deemed him not criminally responsible for the fire, due to his serious mental ill health, and sent him for treatment at Cumberland hospital in Parramatta. Discharge notes handed to the inquest suggest the treatment was effective. “On assessment at the day of discharge, Simon was well-kempt, polite and co-operative,” they read. “Engaged well and maintained a good eye contact. Speech was well articulated, coherent with normal rate, rhythm and tone. Did not exhibit any psychotic or pervasive mood symptoms.” Clare said her brother often responded well to treatment. It made him stable and able to spend time with the rest of the family. It gave them hope. He’d come to Christmases and weddings. He’d help Frances with her vacuuming. She’d do his washing. “He was good for long periods of time but that was on medication,” she said. “The medication had bad side-effects, so he’d self-medicate or come off the medications, and then the cycle of getting into trouble [would begin again].” On 19 August 2021 Simon was sent back to Silverwater. He’d been arrested on relatively minor charges of trespass, intimidation and resisting arrest. On 3 September a psychiatrist used the state’s mental health laws to order Simon be transferred to Long Bay forensic hospital, 40 minutes across Sydney, for involuntary treatment. “Care of an appropriate kind is not available in a correctional centre as he is refusing treatment in this setting,” the psychiatrist wrote. Experts told the inquest that, had such an order been made for someone in an emergency department, they would generally receive appropriate treatment within four hours. Delays of more than 24 hours would be rare. Delays beyond two days would be regarded as a significant failure of the system. There were no beds left at Long Bay. Simon languished in a queue for weeks. On 7 September he was still behind eight others waiting for a bed. A week later he was second on the list for transfer. Five days later he was still stuck at Silverwater. The inquest was told the delay was “unimaginable in Australia”. The deputy state coroner Erin Kennedy found that, had Simon been transported to Long Bay, his physical health would have been more closely monitored and the ulcer would probably have been detected and treated. Instead he was kept in his cell alone . It was, in the words of one psychiatric expert, a torture-like setting for a man suffering untreated schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The lights never went out. The surfaces were hard and cold. The noise and chaos spilling in from Silverwater’s Darcy wing was constant. The surveillance camera was always on. Ordinarily, inmates are not held on the wing for more than 48 hours. Simon was there for almost a month. At times, Simon was recorded as being doubled over in pain. He collapsed to the floor repeatedly. For long stretches he sat with his head in his hands. Guards reported him muttering “biblical things” they couldn’t understand. Transcripts of his intercom exchanges show a man confused and afraid. “You have to understand I’m struggling to breathe,” he told the guards the day before he died. Five minutes later, he buzzed for help again. “Yeah, um, sorry, just give me a sec, I’m standing in front – just give me a few minutes to breathe,” he said. A guard responded: “You’re not doing yourself a favour. Just go to sleep.” Clare and her family have watched the CCTV recordings and listened to the intercom exchanges of Simon’s final days. She says these will stay with her for ever. “He must have been in so much pain to die of sepsis in the last 48 hours, to be so unwell and to be refused water, just the basic human need of water,” she said. “It’s just, it can’t be comprehended.” Clare counted the 19 times that her brother pleaded for water over two days. Guards had shut off the water after Simon left a tap running, flooding the cell. On the evening before his death one told him they would give him water if he stayed silent. “Cartwright, is that you?” the guard asked. “Cartwright, listen. If you be quiet for half an hour and stop knocking up I’ll turn the water on.” Simon waited an hour and a half then rang again. “What is your 300th medical emergency for the night?” the guard responded. Simon pleaded: “Can you turn the water on!” The guard said: “If you aren’t knocking up so much I’ll do it.” Simon begged: “Please!” The last request for water came at 7.48pm. “Medical?” the guards responded. Simon again asked: “Can you turn the water on please?” The guard said: “If you don’t behave like that we will.” The voice in the recordings was barely recognisable to Simon’s family. “It was just so strained and pleading and begging,” Clare says. The prison had no formal policy or procedure governing the restriction of water to cells, the inquest found. Sometime in the year of Simon’s death, a requirement was introduced that compelled guards to get approval by a manager and document such a decision in an accommodation journal. There is no evidence that the requirement was in place at the time of Simon’s death. Simon had not been convicted of any crime. He remained innocent in the eyes of the law. Even if he were convicted, the inquest heard, there was little indication he would have been sentenced to imprisonment. He could have been diverted for mental health treatment and sent to a hospital by the courts, as had happened previously, or given a non-custodial sentence. He was by no means a hardened criminal. “He was one of the most vulnerable in our community,” the coroner wrote. Clare has a vivid memory of her brother’s funeral. He was laid to rest in Newcastle. Covid restrictions meant Clare could not get across the Queensland border. She was forced to watch a video stream. On it she saw her mother sitting on her own, weeping. Frances was forced to grieve alone, separate from the rest of the family, because of social distancing rules. “Seeing my mum just sitting there hunched over on her own, sitting on her own, not even having someone sit next to her and hold a hand – it’s just the most memorable thing in my mind,” Clare says The family still knew little about what had happened. It robbed them of any semblance of closure. “You know, we’re burying our brother and we’re like, ‘What happened?’” Clare says. “You know, you can’t say farewell when there’s just questions in your head: ‘Why are we burying him? We don’t know why.’” Clare was dealing with trauma of her own when she found out her brother was dead. Her husband had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Between treatments, the couple jumped in a caravan and hit the road. Clare described their trip through the outback as “a bucket-list thing”. They got as far as Julia Creek in north-western Queensland when Clare’s sister called. “It’s almost numbing – you just don’t expect to get that call about your siblings,” she says. “Especially our youngest brother. In the back of your mind for so many years, you’re thinking, ‘is Simon going to get better and get himself on his feet or one day are we going to find out that something has happened to him, or he’s disappeared?’” “It was just this feeling of total numbness, the shock that one of us had passed away out of the six of us.” The CCTV camera in Simon’s cell captured several distressing scenes the day before his death. On three occasions he collapsed to the floor. The first time he stumbled and fell backwards over his toilet, remaining on the ground for two minutes. Three and a half hours later he fell while walking towards his bed. He stayed on the ground for two minutes. An hour and a half later he stood up from the bed then fell backwards. He fell again while trying to get to his knees, this time lying on his side for five minutes before getting up. No one in the jail noticed, the inquest found. “You don’t need to be a medical person to see how much pain he was in, anyone could see just how much he was suffering,” Michele says. “His whole experience in the facility by those who were supposedly looking after him was inhumane.” About 9pm that evening, Simon covered his cell’s CCTV camera. Staff testified that steps are usually taken within an hour to uncover surveillance cameras. It took three shifts and almost 24 hours for the camera to be uncovered. Physical checks of the cell were not much better. On the day of Simon’s death, CCTV recordings showed the guard on duty looking into the cell for about four seconds at 2.17pm. He didn’t stand outside the cell and look in again for five hours. The guard used the intercom about 3.41pm to ask Simon to uncover the camera. He received no response. About two hours later, he tried again: “Hey, mate, 37. Cartwright. Cartwright, wake up.” Again, there was no response. Nobody bothered to conduct a physical check. “Although in ostensibly a 24 hour surveillance cell, he was in fact not being observed, nor indeed observable, 24 hours a day,” the coroner wrote. “In the days leading up to his death no one identified that Simon was in fact in urgent need of medical attention. His falls were not observed, his weakened state was not investigated. “The seriousness and urgency of his condition was missed.” After Simon’s death was discovered, the guard on duty filled out an observation form that wrongly suggested that electronic observations had been conducted at 30-minute intervals, the inquest found. The guard later accepted that the form was “not an accurate representation of his observations”. He said he had created the document in an attempt to “neat up” a scrappy piece of paper he had been using to record his checks on Simon. He also made “misleading” statements about his physical checks on Simon, which he later accepted as being “false”. The inquest found that, even with proper checks on that final day, Simon may not have survived. “The fact that Simon lay dying and dead on a cell floor, for long enough that he was not found until there were clearly no indications of life, despite supposedly being subject to the highest level of monitoring within the gaol, is both alarming, and carries its own particular trauma for Simon’s family,” the coroner found. Simon’s mother waited almost three years for an inquest into her son’s death. The family felt it was their only real avenue to the truth. Frances, a pensioner, tried to obtain legal aid so they could be represented in the coronial process but was rejected. It was a decision that infuriated them. They travelled to Sydney for the hearings in May and August this year. They sat in the courtroom, despite invitations to leave, as Simon’s last moments were played to the court, and then prepared a moving statement for the inquest: We are changed forever by the circumstances surrounding his death. Beyond the lack of health care provided the fact that a staff member unilaterally chose to deny Simon water after multiple pleading requests is appalling and a disregard for his basic human rights. We can only regret the many missed opportunities to save him and the thought of what he would have suffered will haunt us forever. The statement was repeated, almost in full, in the coroner’s concluding remarks. Her findings were delivered this month. They are damning. Kennedy found that Simon could have been saved. She was highly critical of the decision to withhold water from him. “Simon’s death was preventable,” she found. “This inquest highlights that [Corrective Services NSW] is not and should not be placed in a position to care for a mentally ill person. Once Simon was scheduled arrangements should have been made to provide medical care.” She recommended that guards on duty be told the reason that inmates are placed in observation cells. She said it was “unfair” that guards were not explicitly given this information, but accepted that it was available to them if they looked for it. She recommended that formal policies be implemented to govern the practice of restricting water to cells and to ensure that prisons monitor food and fluid intake. Justice Health was told to “give consideration” to recommending transfers of mentally unwell patients to external hospitals when no beds at a designated facility are available. The coroner recommended mandating mental health first aid training to officers staffing observation cells. She also recommended that guards be told at the start of their shifts why each inmate is in an observation cell. Justice Health said it acknowledged the pain caused by Simon’s loss and extended its sincere condolences to his family. “We are sorry for the distress experienced by Mr Cartwright’s family and will carefully consider the Coroner’s findings and recommendations before providing a formal response to the Attorney General,” a spokesperson said. A spokesperson for the current corrections minister, Anoulack Chanthivong, said the death was a “tragic loss” to Cartwright’s family and loved ones, and said “we offer them our deepest sympathies”. Corrective Services NSW’s formal response to the inquest will be released at a later date. But the spokesperson said a number of reforms have already been implemented since Cartwright’s death, including establishing a specialised observation suite at Silverwater’s remand centre to monitor at-risk inmates electronically; updating observations policies for at-risk inmates; and implementing a mandatory requirement for control room officers to document and record emergency response activities. Corrective Services is also trialling a new proof of life monitoring technology to detect vital signs, including heart and respiration rates. It has commenced a review of its policies regarding the restriction of water to prison cells. It will also aim to improve its supervision of inmates held in assessment cells for more than 48 hours and is investigating further mental health training for guards. “Corrective Services NSW takes seriously its duty of care to inmates who they are tasked with keeping safe and secure while under supervision,” the spokesperson said. “Any conduct that jeopardises the health or wellbeing of inmates or staff is completely unacceptable and inconsistent with the extremely high standard of behaviour that the minister expects.” “Corrective Services NSW will follow the expert advice of Justice Health in respect to the clinical management of inmate physical and mental health issues, and placement in specialised mental health beds.” It is understood the Corrective Services NSW professional standards unit is also assessing the inquest report to determine whether to take action. The coroner’s findings have come too late for Frances. She died last month at the age of 87, about two weeks before the decision was handed down. “My mother was always at the forefront of finding out what happened to Simon,” Clare says. “Her grief was endless and her regular questions and follow-up with me ensured that we wrote a response to the initial [serious adverse event review] report.” Clare says the inquest has given the family a partial sense of justice. They have nothing but praise for the police investigation and the crown lawyers who worked to find out what had happened. But she says she feels like there have been no real consequences. “It feels like a bit of a slap on the wrist, you know, that they’ve been told that they probably should do things better,” she said. “But really, is that enough when they’ve let someone die in those circumstances?

Chuck Woolery, smooth-talking game show host of 'Love Connection' and 'Scrabble,' dies at 83None