NoneZelenskyy agrees to record podcast with American interviewer FriedmanFor some of these students, it’s their first experience with water activities. WVSS teacher and Waterwise programme leader Izelle Toerien said she finds it rewarding to watch a student progress through the programme – from hesitating at the river’s edge to enjoying their time on the water. “I’ve even had teacher aides start out not wanting to enter the water, only to end up telling me they are going to buy a kayak after the programme,” Toerien said. When Toerien, a Stillwater resident, founded the community Waterwise programme at Stillwater Boating Club eight years ago, she used kayaks from the community before the club fundraised to add paddleboards to their programme. “We are the only centre that has paddleboards. There isn’t regular enough wind here for sailing, and we can only run sessions every second Sunday because of the tide,” Toerien said. The programme has proved popular with the Sunday sessions attracting children from Dairy Flat School and Silverdale Primary, in addition to children from the Stillwater community. So much so that Toerien expanded it to students from WVSS where she teaches digitial technology. WVSS has 10 satellites where students who attend local colleges are taught in a dedicated unit supported by a teacher and three teacher aides for every six to 10 students. Two of these satellites are on the Hibiscus Coast, at Ahutoetoe Primary and Whangaparaoa College. Toerien organised for intermediate-aged students through to older students (up to 21 years) to attend Waterwise sessions at the boat club during the week. A spokesperson for the Stillwater Boat Club said it is important to promote water safety not just for members, but for all kids, which is why they opened the programme up to everyone. “It’s very heart-warming to see new kids with barely any water confidence, become more confident in the water and start to learn to sail,” the club spokesperson said. Waterwise relies on volunteers and parents to run community and school programmes. The programmes aim to develop children’s self-confidence and safety skills around water. Toerien said she didn’t start the Stillwater programme because she was a teacher. She started it in 2017 when she discovered there were no opportunities for children to learn the skills needed to stay safe in a tidal river. “I just enjoy the fact that the students get to learn all the skills for water safety on the river or ocean, and not just in pools. But we would appreciate help and support from people willing to volunteer or train as an instructor. Many centres have closed down in the last year and that means children miss out. Toerien said she was motivated by her love of being out on the water. When she moved to New Zealand, she started sailing in an effort to deal with the winters, which were a tough adjustment from South Africa. “In South Africa I lived on a game farm, 900 kilometres away from the ocean, but I would go kayaking any opportunity I could get, on a dam or a river. I also ran a fishing lodge on the Zambezi River, but there I had to have guides help me navigate because they knew where the hippos and crocodiles were lurking.”
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SERAP Asks Tinubu, Shettima Others To Publish Their AssetsJennifer Lawrence and Malala Yousafzai give voice to silenced Afghan women in ‘Bread & Roses’: ‘It’s crucial we have a record of all this’SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean officials are struggling to determine what caused a deadly plane crash that killed 179 people, with the nation saddened, shocked and ashamed over the country's worst aviation disaster in decades. Many observers also worry how effectively the South Korean government will handle the aftermath of Sunday's crash as it grapples with a leadership vacuum following the recent successive impeachments of President Yoon Suk Yeol and Prime Minster Han Duck-soo, the country’s top two officials, amid political tumult caused by Yoon’s brief martial law introduction earlier this month. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.
After earning much-needed wins earlier this week, the Detroit Red Wings and Philadelphia Flyers hope to build on those performances Thursday when they face off in Pennsylvania. Detroit snapped a season-high five-game losing streak Monday with a 6-5 victory against the Buffalo Sabres. The Red Wings trailed 5-3 with under 10 minutes left in regulation before tying things up and eventually prevailing in a shootout. "It was a massive win for us," said Detroit's Dylan Larkin, who had two assists in regulation before netting the decisive goal in the shootout. "... It was good for our hockey team to score some goals, to be down and come back and win like that." Andrew Copp added two goals for the Red Wings, while Lucas Raymond scored once in regulation and again in the shootout. The headliner for Detroit, however, was Sebastian Cossa, who relieved Ville Husso in net after the first period and went on to earn the win in his NHL debut. It's been a grueling stretch for the Red Wings, who have played 11 straight games decided by two goals or fewer. During their five-game losing streak, each of those defeats came by a single goal, including twice in overtime. "We needed one to go our way," Detroit coach Derek Lalonde said, adding that his team was "a little sloppy tonight, but we produced some offense. Give a lot of credit to the guys (for hanging) in there." The Red Wings' story actually sounds similar to what the Flyers have gone through in November. Philadelphia had lost three in a row prior to authoring a solid performance in Tuesday's 5-3 road victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets. Travis Konecny had two goals and Owen Tippett tallied for the fifth time in as many games for the Flyers, who play eight of their next 10 games on the road after Thursday's contest. "We needed that win," Konecny said. "We've been going in the wrong direction for a few games, so it was good to turn it around." Philadelphia, like Detroit, has had a long stretch of games decided by two goals or fewer -- nine in a row. "I felt it was an important game for us to get back to playing with energy," Flyers coach John Tortorella said. The Flyers and Red Wings have one other commonality in that they have not reached the postseason in several years. Detroit has missed the playoffs in each of the last eight seasons (and has an uphill battle to reach the postseason in 2025). Philadelphia, meanwhile, has a decent shot to end its four-year playoff drought. That said, the Flyers players are aiming to take things one game at a time. "I think it's still a little early to look at standings and movement and stuff, but, obviously, you know when the big games are, when you play in your conference and division," Tippett said. "Those are the points that matter coming down to the end." This is the first meeting of the season between the teams, who will face off again next week in Detroit and then once again in Philadelphia on Jan. 21. This article first appeared on Field Level Media and was syndicated with permission.DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza City (AP) — For Gaza’s women, the hardships of life in the territory’s sprawling tent camps are compounded by the daily humiliation of never having privacy. Women struggle to dress modestly while crowded into tents with extended family members, including men, and with strangers only steps away in neighboring tents. Access to menstrual products is limited, so they cut up sheets or old clothes to use as pads. Makeshift toilets usually consist of only a hole in the sand surrounded by sheets dangling from a line, and these must be shared with dozens of other people. Alaa Hamami has dealt with the modesty issue by constantly wearing her prayer shawl, a black cloth that covers her head and upper body. “Our whole lives have become prayer clothes, even to the market we wear it,” said the young mother of three. “Dignity is gone.” Normally, she would wear the shawl only when performing her daily Muslim prayers. But with so many men around, she keeps it on all the time, even when sleeping — just in case an Israeli strike hits nearby in the night and she has to flee quickly, she said. Israel’s 14-month-old campaign in Gaza has driven more than 90% of its 2.3 million Palestinians from their homes. Hundreds of thousands of them are now living in squalid camps of tents packed close together over large areas. Sewage runs into the streets , and food and water are hard to obtain. Winter is setting in. Families often wear the same clothes for weeks because they left clothing and many other belongings behind as they fled. Everyone in the camps searches daily for food, clean water and firewood. Women feel constantly exposed. Gaza has always been a conservative society. Most women wear the hijab, or head scarf, in the presence of men who are not immediate family. Matters of women’s health — pregnancy, menstruation and contraception — tend not to be discussed publicly. “Before we had a roof. Here it does not exist,” said Hamami, whose prayer shawl is torn and smudged with ash from cooking fires. “Here our entire lives have become exposed to the public. There is no privacy for women.” Wafaa Nasrallah, a displaced mother of two, says life in the camps makes even the simplest needs difficult, like getting period pads, which she cannot afford. She tried using pieces of cloth and even diapers, which have also increased in price. For a bathroom, she has a hole in the ground, surrounded by blankets propped up by sticks. The U.N. says more than 690,000 women and girls in Gaza require menstrual hygiene products, as well as clean water and toilets. Aid workers have been unable to meet demand, with supplies piling up at crossings from Israel. Stocks of hygiene kits have run out, and prices are exorbitant. Many women have to choose between buying pads and buying food and water. Doaa Hellis, a mother of three living in a camp, said she has torn up her old clothes to use for menstrual pads. “Wherever we find fabric, we tear it up and use it.” A packet of pads costs 45 shekels ($12), “and there is not even five shekels in the whole tent,” she said. Anera, a rights group active in Gaza, says some women use birth control pills to halt their periods. Others have experienced disruptions in their cycles because of the stress and trauma of repeated displacement. The terrible conditions pose real risks to women’s health, said Amal Seyam, the director of the Women’s Affairs Center in Gaza, which provides supplies for women and surveys them about their experiences. She said some women have not changed clothes for 40 days. That and improvised cloth pads “will certainly create” skin diseases, diseases related to reproductive health and psychological conditions, she said. “Imagine what a woman in Gaza feels like, if she’s unable to control conditions related to hygiene and menstrual cycles,” Seyam said. Hellis remembered a time not so long ago, when being a woman felt more like a joy and less like a burden. “Women are now deprived of everything, no clothes, no bathroom. Their psychology is completely destroyed,” she said. Seyam said the center has tracked cases where girls have been married younger, before the age of 18, to escape the suffocating environment of their family’s tents. The war will “continue to cause a humanitarian disaster in every sense of the word. And women always pay the biggest price,” she said. Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, over half of them women and children, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. Its count does not differentiate between combatants and civilians. Israel launched its assault in retaliation for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on southern Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted around 250 others. With large swaths of Gaza’s cities and towns leveled, women wrestle with reduced lives in their tents. Hamami can walk the length of her small tent in a few strides. She shares it with 13 other people from her extended family. During the war, she gave birth to a son, Ahmed, who is now 8 months old. Between caring for him and her two other children, washing her family’s laundry, cooking and waiting in line for water, she says there’s no time to care for herself. She has a few objects that remind her of what her life once was, including a powder compact she brought with her when she fled her home in the Shati camp of Gaza City. The makeup is now caked and crumbling. She managed to keep hold of a small mirror through four different displacements over the past year. It’s broken into two shards that she holds together every so often to catch a glimpse of her reflection. “Previously, I had a wardrobe that contained everything I could wish for,” she said. “We used to go out for a walk every day, go to wedding parties, go to parks, to malls, to buy everything we wanted." Women “lost their being and everything in this war," she said. "Women used to take care of themselves before the war. Now everything is destroyed.” Associated Press writer Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.
Ministers said an extra £15 million will be made available for supply chain businesses and workers affected by changes at Tata’s Port Talbot site in south Wales. Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens said the move means a fund to support businesses across Wales heavily reliant on Tata steel will be increased to £30 million. She also announced that more businesses will be able to apply for the funds, and the value of individual grants is increasing to up to £250,000 for businesses to invest in equipment, property, technology. The Government said there has been “significant demand” on the existing funding, with almost 40 businesses employing 2,000 people having begun the application process. Grants worth millions of pounds are expected to be released in the new year. The increase in funding is in anticipation of more people leaving Tata in early 2025 through the company’s voluntary redundancy scheme. Ms Stevens said: “This Government is acting decisively to support workers and businesses in Port Talbot. “We are doubling the funding available to businesses and workers and widening access to grants to ensure we support as many people as possible. “In just four months we have announced more than £40 million in investment. We said we would back workers and businesses affected by the transition at Port Talbot and we are doing exactly that. “While this remains a very difficult time for Tata workers, their families and the community, we are determined to support workers and businesses in our Welsh steel industry, whatever happens.”Children of the wealthy and connected get special admissions consideration at some elite U.S. universities, according to new filings in a class-action lawsuit originally brought against 17 schools. Georgetown’s then-president, for example, listed a prospective student on his “president’s list” after meeting her and her wealthy father at an Idaho conference known as “summer camp for billionaires,” according to Tuesday court filings in the price-fixing lawsuit filed in Chicago federal court in 2022. Although it’s always been assumed that such favoritism exists, the filings offer a rare peek at the often secret deliberations of university heads and admissions officials. They show how schools admit otherwise unqualified wealthy children because their parents have connections and could possibly donate large sums down the line, raising questions about fairness. Stuart Schmill, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in a 2018 email that the university admitted four out of six applicants recommended by then-board chairman Robert Millard, including two who “we would really not have otherwise admitted.” The two others were not admitted because they were “not in the ball park, or the push from him was not as strong.” In the email, Schmill said Millard was careful to play down his influence on admissions decisions, but he said the chair also sent notes on all six students and later met with Schmill to share insight “into who he thought was more of a priority.” The filings are the latest salvo in a lawsuit that claims that 17 of the nation’s most prestigious colleges colluded to reduce the competition for prospective students and drive down the amount of financial aid they would offer, all while giving special preference to the children of wealthy donors. “That illegal collusion resulted in the defendants providing far less aid to students than would have been provided in a free market,” said Robert Gilbert, an attorney for the plaintiffs. Since the lawsuit was filed, 10 of the schools have reached settlements to pay out a total of $284 million, including payments of up to $2,000 to current or former students whose financial aid might have been shortchanged over a period of more than two decades. They are Brown, the University of Chicago, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt and Yale. Johns Hopkins is working on a settlement and the six schools still fighting the lawsuit are the California Institute of Technology, Cornell, Georgetown, MIT, Notre Dame and the University of Pennsylvania. MIT called the lawsuit and the claims about admissions favoritism baseless. “MIT has no history of wealth favoritism in its admissions; quite the opposite,” university spokesperson Kimberly Allen said. “After years of discovery in which millions of documents were produced that provide an overwhelming record of independence in our admissions process, plaintiffs could cite just a single instance in which the recommendation of a board member helped sway the decisions for two undergraduate applicants.” In a statement, Penn also said the case is meritless that the evidence shows that it doesn’t favor students whose families have donated or pledged money to the Ivy League school. “Plaintiffs’ whole case is an attempt to embarrass the University about its purported admission practices on issues totally unrelated to this case,” the school said. Notre Dame officials also called the case baseless. “We are confident that every student admitted to Notre Dame is fully qualified and ready to succeed,” a university spokesperson said in a statement. The South Bend, Indiana, school, though, did apparently admit wealthy students with subpar academic backgrounds. According to the new court filings, Don Bishop, who was then associate vice president for enrollment at Notre Dame, bluntly wrote about the “special interest” admits in a 2012 email, saying that year’s crop had poorer academic records than the previous year’s. The 2012 group included 38 applicants who were given a “very low” academic rating, Bishop wrote. He said those students represented “massive allowances to the power of the family connections and funding history,” adding that “we allowed their high gifting or potential gifting to influence our choices more this year than last year.” The final line of his email: “Sure hope the wealthy next year raise a few more smart kids!” Some of the examples pointed to in this week’s court filings showed that just being able to pay full tuition would give students an advantage. During a deposition, a former Vanderbilt admissions director said that in some cases, a student would get an edge on the waitlist if they didn’t need financial aid. The 17 schools were part of a decades-old group that got permission from Congress to come up with a shared approach to awarding financial aid. Such an arrangement might otherwise violate antitrust laws, but Congress allowed it as long as the colleges all had need-blind admissions policies, meaning they wouldn’t consider a student’s financial situation when deciding who gets in. The lawsuit argues that many colleges claimed to be need-blind but routinely favored the children of alumni and donors. In doing so, the suit says, the colleges violated the Congressional exemption and tainted the entire organization. The group dissolved in recent years when the provision allowing the collaboration expired. ___ The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Children of the wealthy and connected get special admissions consideration Jay-Z’s lawyers asked a judge Wednesday to speedily extract the (AP) — McKinsey & Company consulting firm has agreed to NASA’s two stuck astronauts just got their space mission extended
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