Gov. Kemp Initiates SREB Commission to Sync Southern Workforce with In-Demand Jobs
Federal investigators in New York are seeking records from the manufacturer of an AI-powered weapons scanner that was briefly deployed this summer in New York City’s subway system. The tech company, Evolv, revealed in a public filing that it “received a voluntary document request from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York” on Nov. 1. It was unclear what the request was seeking. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan declined to comment on the request, which was first reported by the Daily News. In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Evolv said the company was “pleased to cooperate with all government agencies and regulators who request information from our company.” The Massachusetts-based tech company, whose scanners have also been used at sports stadiums and schools, has faced allegations of misconduct. Last month, Evolv’s board of directors fired its chief executive following an internal investigation that found certain sales had been “subject to extra-contractual terms and conditions.” On Tuesday, the company announced it had resolved a previous probe launched by the Federal Trade Commission last year over allegations of deceptive marketing practices. The company is also under separate investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Despite the legal and regulatory scrutiny, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a pilot program this summer to bring a handful of scanners to the city's subways to deter gun violence. The initiative drew immediate criticism from civil liberties groups who said the searches were unconstitutional, along with questions about its efficacy. In October, the city revealed the scanners did not detect any passengers with firearms — but falsely alerted more than 100 times. At the time, a spokesperson for the New York Police Department said it was still “evaluating the outcome of the pilot” and had not entered into any contract with Evolv.Sustainability is a popular buzzword, but what does it really mean? The UN Brundtland Commission defines sustainability as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." To delve deeper into sustainability, the Philippine National Bank (PNB) held its full-day Sustainability Thought Leadership Workshop with the theme "SUMMIT FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH – ENABLING PATHWAYS, BREAKING BARRIERS" last November at Century Park. Organized by SVP Jean Marie Baruelo, PNB’s Corporate Sustainability Head, this event marked a crucial step forward as the Board of Directors and Senior Management convened to strengthen PNB’s commitment to sustainability. Partnering with the International Finance Corporation, S&P Global, the University of the Philippines Los Baños, and the World Wildlife Fund, PNB aims to build long-term sustainable growth that benefits everyone—stakeholders, the bank, communities served, and future generations. The event was spearheaded by PNB President Florido "Doy" Casuela and SVP Baruelo. "Sustainability is no longer at the margins of business; it is a mainstream strategy to build resilience and future-proof our organization," stated PNB Chairman Edgar Cua. "While regulatory requirements have spurred the acceleration of sustainability integration into businesses, successful implementation and achievement of sustainability goals, particularly for banks, can only be gained by viewing sustainability as a natural part of risks and opportunities. Businesses will either adapt and gain access to the opportunities or neglect the risks and bear the effects of climate risks and fragmented or misaligned strategies." He also noted key areas for sustainability integration highlighted by asset managers globally. With the vision to achieve the triple bottom line – People, Planet, Prosperity – the workshop provided valuable insights, helping stakeholders understand how to align with the latest Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) trends and make impactful changes to achieve greater resilience and future-proof the bank. WWF Philippines Chief of Party Edgardo Tongson discussed Nature and Biodiversity Loss and the Sustainable Banking Assessment of top Philippine banks based on public disclosures on ESG metrics and indicators pertaining to Purpose, Policies, People, Products, and Portfolio. International Finance Corporation (IFC) Senior Climate Finance Specialist Quyen Thuc Nguyen, who flew in from Washington, DC, tackled global trends in sustainability strategies and how to integrate them into business activities for responsible banking and operations. IFC Climate Risk Lead for East Asia Pacific Paul Xavier Espinosa discussed Climate Risk Management trends, tools, and methodologies to measure, assess, and integrate Physical, Transition, and Climate Risks into the bank’s risk models for safe, sound, and sustainable banking. IFC Senior Operations Officer for the Asia and Pacific Region, Oluwatoyin Alake, shared how leading financial institutions can fulfill the critical role of channeling financing flows to sustainable green and social projects and leverage thematic capital markets for funding mobilization. A panel fireside chat, composed of PNB Board Chairman Cua, Director Enrico Alfiler, IFC speakers Ms. Nguyen, Mr. Espinosa, and Ms. Alake, and joined by S&P Global Regional Team Lead for Sustainability Analytics Services Terrence Teoh, was moderated by PNB EVP Francis Albalate. The discussion centered on how bank leadership can drive sustainable practices and ESG strategy. Mr. Teoh provided valuable insights on decarbonization pathways and reporting expectations, and tackled use cases of successful ESG transformation, emphasizing the criticality of top-down, bottom-up, inside-out, and outside-in sustainability alignment, integration, and cohesion. Bernadette Tongko-Magadia, UPLB Associate Dean of the College of Engineering and Agro-Industrial Technology, refreshed PNB on the Environmental and Social Risk Management System (ESRMS), highlighting critical areas and recommendations for decarbonization. Breakout sessions with small groups of board and senior management tackled case studies to produce key strategies and initiatives to embed sustainability in all facets of business and operations. Among the topics were: A fun activity involved participants engaging in gardening. Name tags were embedded with actual seeds, and participants "planted" their pencils in pots to support environmental objectives and symbolically pledge to nurture the seeds planted. May the seeds not just grow, but thrive towards meaningful ESG transformation! **** Ms. Tarriela is a former PNB Chairman and now serves as Board Advisor. She was Citibank’s first Filipina Vice President and a former Undersecretary of Finance. She is a director of Nickel Asia Corp., LTG Inc., and FINEX. An environmentalist, she founded Flor’s Garden in Antipolo.
Kolkata: The waiting time at several crossings is likely to decrease further by three to ten seconds, thanks to an ongoing Kolkata Traffic Police survey that relies on ground reports and not just technology to identify traffic volume for each hour of the day. The fresh changes were introduced based on suggestions from OCs who studied ground conditions, in addition to the statistical data collected from the crossings by the planning department. "Besides the technical inputs, we have incorporated local inputs," said a senior officer. These changes have been implemented by making adjustments on multiple fronts, such as altering left turn timings and holding up or slowing down non-pressure flanks, which are the most significant of them. Among the visible changes will be at the Ballygunge ITI crossing , Ballygunge Tram Depot crossing, Beckbagan and the MG Road-College Street crossing. To align each localised signal with the centralised signalling system, police are not altering the overall traffic cycle timings allotted for each crossing. Instead, they are adjusting the timings of only one or two specific flanks to address local issues. The police have also decided to segregate primary and secondary crossings on important stretches and assign signal timings to them based on the track volume. A study on vehicle count in each direction of the crossings, especially at the secondary ones, is being conducted. While such an experiment was already successful on CR Avenue, police will now try to ensure that crossings without high cross traffic, where most vehicles take left turns, do not hold up vehicles on the thoroughfare. "While it is understandable that we need to give enough time for cross traffic at, say, the MG Road-CR Avenue or JL Nehru-APC Road, the same might not be true for Elgin Road-Sarat Bose Road, Roy Bahadur Road-DH Road or Alipore Road-Judges Court Road, where further changes are still possible," said an officer. According to the plan, as evident on CR Avenue, traffic on primary roads will have to stop longer at all important crossings where cross traffic is high. However, where cross traffic is less during non-peak hours, the up and down straight-moving traffic on these primary roads will always get preference. As part of this realignment, police have already reduced signal timings on south-bound movement to allow more time for east-bound vehicles at the important Ballygunge Phanri crossing. Similar changes have been made at the Tagore Park crossing on EM Bypass, AJC Bose Road-JL Nehru Road crossing and Cathedral Road-AJC Bose Road crossing after 10 pm.aja’a is a displaced 63-year-old widow from south Lebanon who has been praying for a ceasefire deal to end the between Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah and Israel. To date, the conflict has killed thousands and . As the winter months set in on the Lebanese mountains Raja’a, whose name means hope, grew more desperate. Her phone calls have become more frequent. “Firas my dear, do you think peace is near? I’m cold.” The U.S.-brokered truce that Lebanon signed on to and Israel’s war cabinet , is a far cry from any kind of “divine victory” Hezbollah proclaimed after its last major war with Israel in 2006. indicates the group will be required to withdraw its heavy weaponry from south Lebanon, a key Israeli demand. The deal also creates an American-led monitoring and enforcement mechanism to verify that withdrawal, and to prevent Iran from replenishing the group’s historically formidable arsenal. But will U.S. supervision and guarantees bring lasting stability to this ? Or will it prove to be just another intermission between wars as Hezbollah regroups now that its ? Israel is skeptical. The arrangement that ended the , U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, was largely left unenforced. In its wake, Hezbollah grew exponentially stronger as Iran furnished it with ballistic missiles and precision-guided munitions while U.N. peacekeepers and the Lebanese Armed Forces looked the other way. To address these concerns, the U.S. has reportedly provided Israel a that consents to continued aerial reconnaissance over Lebanon, and Tel Aviv’s right to strike at emerging threats if the monitoring and enforcement mechanism fail. Senior Israeli officials have privately told their American counterparts, “We will do less if the mechanism does more, but we will have to do more if it ultimately does less.” But Washington’s assurances and the U.S.-led monitoring mechanism can only do so much without a willing and capable partner in Beirut, a Lebanese government that is ready to work with the international community to expand the state’s sovereignty, enforce border controls, and curb what remains of Hezbollah’s military might. The Lebanese army is the most respected institution in an otherwise diverse and sectarian country. But it cannot be the required partner without political directives from a sovereign-minded President. Even if the in Lebanon comes to an end, the country cannot possibly work with international donors to undertake the mammoth task of reconstruction without a reformist government—one that no longer consents to Hezbollah’s brandishing of under the rubric of resistance to Israel. Amos Hochstein, the charismatic U.S. envoy leading the ceasefire talks, has largely shied away from Lebanon’s archaic internal affairs and the question of the day after. Much more is required, not only to reboot the stalled political process in Beirut, but also to prevent Lebanon from backsliding into civil strife, as it did following the last major Hezbollah-Israel war. In 2008, the militant group against a Lebanese government that tried to limit its power. Lebanon is a country that will need active management to achieve any sustained progress. Before Washington is fully consumed by the in January, Hochstein would do well to enlist the help of France and Saudi Arabia, U.S. partners who have traditionally wielded significant influence in Lebanon and who have a long track record of mediating between the bickering Lebanese parties. France has been grudgingly watching from the sidelines as Hochstein asserted American leadership at the expense of French diplomacy over its former protectorate. But in the days ahead, as the guns finally fall silent, Hochstein should support Paris and encourage it to resume talks with the disparate Lebanese factions to end years of political gridlock that have crippled state institutions and left the . The Saudis, who hosted and facilitated the talks that ended the 15-year Lebanese civil war in 1990, have also been hands-off, foregoing a role in Lebanon to focus on their country’s . But they too now have an interest in stepping up, realizing that progress on their vision of regional integration and will depend on durable ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza. Both the Saudis and the French maintain a pragmatic, if still largely adversarial, relationship with Iran. This will matter for the politics surrounding a diminished, but still significant . When French President Emanuel Macron visits Saudi Arabia on a , he should propose co-hosting a post-war national dialogue of Lebanese leaders under American, French, and Saudi patronage to reboot Beirut’s stalled politics, and to set clear conditions for the billions of U.S. dollars needed for reconstruction. And as Trump returns to office next year, appointing a capable successor to Hochstein to work with all the parties should be a foreign policy priority. The Italian political philosopher Antonio Gramsci famously warned that a great variety of morbid symptoms appear in the interregnum that occurs when the old is dying and the new cannot yet be born. We must beware of what might follow a much-anticipated Israel-Lebanon ceasefire if Beirut is left unattended. If the millions like Raja’a, a second mother to me, return to shattered villages with no prospect of rebuilding and little hope of a dignified existence, Hochstein’s ceasefire won’t last long.
Nasarawa market fire victims bemoan losses
AP Business SummaryBrief at 6:44 p.m. ESTMueller water products VP Smith sells $653,306 in stock