NEW YORK , Dec. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Sun Communities, Inc. ("Sun Communities" or the "Company") (NYSE: SUI ). Such investors are advised to contact Danielle Peyton at [email protected] or 646-581-9980, (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 7980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased. The class action concerns whether Sun Communities and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices. You have until February 10, 2025 , to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class if you are a shareholder who purchased or otherwise acquired DMC securities during the Class Period. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained a t www.pomerantzlaw.com . [Click here for information about joining the class action] On September 25, 2024 , Blue Orca Capital ("Blue Orca") published a report alleging that Sun's Chief Executive Officer ("CEO") had an "undisclosed $4 million loan from the family of a purported independent Director who has sat on the Audit Committee and chaired the Compensation Committee for over a decade," and that Blue Orca had also "uncovered" additional personal loans from members of Sun's board of directors to the CEO. On this news, Sun Communities' stock price fell $1.62 per share, or 1.16%, to close at $137.48 per share on September 25, 2024 . Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York , Chicago , Los Angeles , London , Paris , and Tel Aviv , is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz , known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud , breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered billions of dollars in damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com . Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes. CONTACT: Danielle Peyton Pomerantz LLP [email protected] 646-581-9980 ext. 7980 SOURCE Pomerantz LLPRocker Marilyn Manson has agreed to drop a lawsuit against his former fiancée, “Westworld” actor Evan Rachel Wood, and to pay her attorneys' fees, lawyers for both sides said Tuesday. The move comes 18 months after a Los Angeles County judge threw out much of the 2022 suit in which Manson, whose legal name is Brian Warner, claimed Wood had fabricated public allegations that he sexually and physically abused her during their relationship and encouraged other women to fabricate their own allegations. “After four years of fighting a battle where he was able to tell the truth, Brian is pleased to dismiss his still-pending claims and appeal in order to close the door on this chapter of his life," Manson attorney Howard King said in a statement. Manson had been appealing the judge's decision but his attorneys reached out to Wood's seeking a settlement in the spring. Wood's attorneys said Tuesday that she rejected requests that the terms be kept confidential. Manson “filed a lawsuit against Ms. Wood as a publicity stunt to try to undermine the credibility of his many accusers and revive his faltering career,” Wood’s lawyer Michael J. Kump said in a statement. “But his attempt to silence and intimidate Ms. Wood failed.” Manson agreed to pay nearly $327,000 in attorney fees for Wood. The settlement comes nearly four years into a criminal investigation of the 55-year-old Manson involving multiple women that remains unresolved. Outgoing LA County District Attorney George Gascón said in October that his office's sex crimes division had just discovered new evidence and that a decision on whether to file charges would be made when the picture was more complete. The women involved in the criminal case have not been identified, but “Game of Thrones” actor Esme Bianco has said she was among them, and criticized the district attorney for taking so long to investigate. Bianco settled her own lawsuit against Manson last year. The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly as Wood and Bianco have. Manson has denied engaging in any non-consensual sexual acts. In 2017, with the #MeToo movement gaining momentum, Wood said publicly that she had been raped and abused, and gave testimony on the subject to a Congressional committee in 2018, but did not name anyone in either instance. Then in a 2020 Instagram post, Wood said it was Manson who had “horrifically abused me for years.” The two revealed they were a couple in 2007, and were briefly engaged in 2010 before breaking up. Manson's original lawsuit alleged that Wood and another woman, Ashley Gore, also known as Illma Gore in court papers, defamed him, intentionally caused him emotional distress and derailed his career in music, TV and film. It says they used false pretenses, including a phony letter from the FBI, to convince other women to come forward with sexual abuse allegations and coached them on what to say. The suit said Wood had only glowing things to say about Manson during their relationship. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Teresa A. Beaudet dismissed the part of the suit dealing with the disputed FBI letter, which Wood denied forging. Beaudet also tossed out a section that alleges Wood and Gore used a checklist found on an iPad for other women to use to make abuse claims about Manson. Other parts of the lawsuit had remained because they were not subject to Wood’s motion, including allegations that Gore hacked Manson’s email, phone and social media accounts, created a phony email to manufacture evidence that he was sending illegal pornography, and “swatted” him, using a prank call to send authorities to his home. Gore reached her own agreement with Manson to dismiss the lawsuit. A message to her attorneys seeking comment wasn't immediately returned.
He’s a fourth-generation rancher with one of the biggest spreads in one of the most beautiful parts of Montana. His ranch is so expansive, in fact, that he flies a helicopter when he needs to tend to his herd or put out a fire in a hurry. And he’s from a deeply entrenched and politically powerful family. But, no, he’s not John Dutton, the character who Kevin Costner played up until the start of its new season last month, on the hit “Yellowstone” TV show. He’s Bill Galt, and he’s well aware that art appears to be imitating his life. “Oh, I’ve heard that a lot,” Galt said of the comparisons. “But I think mostly that’s attributed to the fact that I’m a rancher that flies a helicopter and that those first few episodes of ‘Yellowstone’ had that helicopter in there. But that being said, they do use a lot of my sayings. I don’t know where the hell they get them.” People are also reading... Here's a list of Lincoln restaurants open on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day Lincoln native purchases Michael Jordan's iconic Chicago mansion for $9.5 million Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen hospitalized at UNMC after falling from horse Nebraska volleyball libero Lexi Rodriguez signs to play with Omaha pro team Amie Just: Lexi Rodriguez deserved a national title. For her career to end like this? Gutting Man killed by brother in Lincoln apartment complex shooting, police say Nebraska volleyball laments being a 'couple plays' short of finishing off Penn State 3 Nebraska starters still with team to miss bowl game with mix of injuries, opt outs 'Multiple wins for me': Lincoln North Star rallies from double-digit deficit hours after coach's son is born Inside Matt Rhule's 'pretty insane gesture' of getting former Huskers to the Pinstripe Bowl Man killed in Friday night crash north of Lincoln Teenage brother charged as adult in Christmas Eve shooting death Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen sustained fractured ribs, lacerated spleen in fall from horse Honor walk pays tribute to Lincoln man who made organ donation Transfer tracker: The latest on the Nebraska football roster One source might be “ The Cowboy Way: Seasons of a Montana Ranch, “ a nonfiction account of former Lee Montana editor — and current Arizona Daily Star editor — David McCumber’s year spent working on Galt’s ranch in the late 1990s. But Galt can’t be certain. And publicists from the Paramount Network, where “Yellowstone” airs, did not respond to questions about Galt’s role in inspiring John Dutton. “I’ve never talked to anybody from the ‘Yellowstone’ show or anybody that had anything to do with it,” Galt said. “One of the big reasons I wanted to work for Bill to do the research for ‘The Cowboy Way’ was that the ranch – both the ground and the family – represents a straight line through the history of Montana ranching,” McCumber said, “and I think that’s a lot of what ‘Yellowstone’ wanted to capture as well.” Like his fictional alter ego, Galt has made no secret of his desire to protect his big piece of Big Sky Country, even from the stray angler trying to fish on his property. And he has made his case, like Dutton, on television. In a 2016 episode of Anthony Bourdain’s show “Parts Unknown,” Galt and McCumber debated Montana’s 1985 stream-access law, which grants fishermen a right to use streams on private property, so long as they get where they are going within that stream’s high-water mark. Galt called that practice “thievery” back then. Nowadays, he begrudgingly accepts it. “Well, you know, stream access is a law, and we abide by it,” Galt said. “And I guess we’ll learn to live with it.” But there’s another form of encroachment on his land from sportsmen he’s less willing to look past: illegal hunting. “We have county roads running through each of the ranches,” Galt said. “So sometimes they just can’t resist themselves, and they shoot one off the county road.” And as Montana’s human population has grown, so has its elk population, especially on large tracts of private land like the Galt ranch. In hunting season, he said, his land has been “plagued” by such illegal shoots, even though he allows hunters onto his land through the state’s block-management program. For Galt, it all falls under a plainspoken philosophy, one you can almost hear coming out of Kevin Costner’s mouth: “I just think private land’s private land, and you should be able to do what’s legal on it. Put it that way.” While no one has yet proposed a subdivision or a golf course on the land around his 90,000-acre spread — a scenario from the hit television show — Galt doesn’t necessarily think there would be anything wrong with it if they decided to do so. “If they’re just selling to the highest bidder,” Galt said, “I think that’s the American way.” He said such development can sometimes be about preserving ranching, not pushing it out, by acting as a financial “parachute” for people looking to “keep their ranch running.” “I know a lot of ranches that have literally been saved by being able to carve off a piece of ground, whether it’s to sell to a neighbor or for development that actually saved their ranch from going broke,” Galt said. But Galt said “that’s just about impossible anymore. You know, they’re so heavily restricted.” In what’s been viewed as a landmark case as the state tries to balance demand for development with laws that protect land and water, Galt’s brother Errol Galt was on the losing end of a recent District Court order that stopped his plans to build 39 homes and two commercial properties on 442 acres of land on the east side of the Canyon Ferry Reservoir. Bill Galt said he has “never tried to do any of that kind of development on my ranch. So I understand my brother has issues with it, although, amazingly, we don’t talk much about it. When we’re talking, it’s about ranching stuff.” And there’s lots to talk about. Recent drought has shrunk the size of Montana’s cattle herd. That means ranchers have less livestock to sell, but it has also meant they can get a higher price from the feed lots that buy the yearlings they produce. And as Montana’s population has grown — partly due to the popularity of “Yellowstone” itself — so has the demand for land, hemming in some ranchers who rely on the state’s wide open spaces to give their cattle a place to roam. Like the character he seemingly inspired, Galt has been on his land long enough to feel the forces of change swirling all around his ranch as new neighbors move in and bring with them new ways of doing things. “I’m surrounded by what we call the non-resident ranchers,” Galt said. While “every one of them does run some cattle and tries to make them look like a ranch” and “most of them do a pretty good job,” Galt said the fact that his neighbors aren’t making a living off the land is a sign of a broader shift. It’s a shift that ranchers and brokers from across the state say they are seeing too, as wealthy buyers, often from out of state, purchase agricultural properties for prices that cattle production can’t possibly pay for. “All the ranching they do won’t pay the interest on that ranch that they bought for that $1,500-an-acre price,” Galt said. While his business is focused on raising black Angus cattle and quarterhorses, Galt has embraced the use of new technologies to do the traditional job of cowboying. “The basics of ranching I don’t think have changed much,” Galt said. “We still raise calves that we make into yearlings. But the mechanization is what has really changed. We used to go, when we were weaning, we would have a crew of maybe 16 riders down to now we do it with four just because of mechanization, because of the helicopter and four-wheelers and better hand machinery. We’ve become way more efficient as time goes on.” McCumber said his interest in Galt had to do with this approach that combines old-fashioned and modern approaches. “There was a mix of old and new in everything – fencing, feeding, gathering, range management, predator control, irrigating, haying, you name it,” McCumber said. “Things like big irrigation pivots, swathers and balers, artificial insemination, and the helicopter are modern ways. But lots of things don’t change. One of those is helping your neighbors. All of that seems to show up in ‘Yellowstone,’ and that authenticity is what makes the show as enduring as it has proved to be.” Though he acknowledged “Yellowstone” undoubtedly takes liberties with reality, Galt said he’s a devoted viewer of a show that deals with real issues that ranchers like him face, including everything from how to resist “the encroachment on ranches by the big money people” to how to handle estate taxes. “There’s parts of it that are absolutely correct,” Galt said of the show. “Yellowstone” has closed its run, with the seemingly Galt-inspired character killed off after Costner quit the show. Or was supposedly killed off. “I guess I’m not real sure he’s dead,” Galt said. “Just watching it, it seems to be there’s some doubt.”None
An economic administrator, statesman: Journey of Manmohan SinghAmerican Civil War-era sword belonging to N.B. doctor to go on display in Saint John FREDERICTON — A ceremonial sword that belonged to a New Brunswick doctor who served in the American Civil War has found its way back home, where it will be on display at the Loyalist House museum in Saint John, starting this summer. Hina Alam, The Canadian Press Dec 27, 2024 1:12 PM Dec 27, 2024 1:20 PM Share by Email Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Print Share via Text Message The grave of Dr. John F. Stevenson is seen in St. Andrews, N.B., in an undated handout photo. Stevenson, a native to St. Andrews, was buried after his remains were returned. He served in the United States Medical Corp and was assigned as a surgeon with the 29th Connecticut Infantry during the U.S. Civil War. He died on Nov. 8, 1865. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Troy Middleton, *MANDATORY CREDIT* FREDERICTON — A ceremonial sword that belonged to a New Brunswick doctor who served in the American Civil War has found its way back home, where it will be on display at the Loyalist House museum in Saint John, starting this summer. Troy Middleton, vice-president of Loyalist House, said he was excited to have Dr. John F. Stevenson's dress sword as part of the collection of the New Brunswick Historical Society, which operates the museum. Middleton said he noticed the item for sale on Facebook by a private collector a little more than a year ago. Wanting to bring home this piece of Canadian-American history, the society raised the required $6,200, and the Canadian Museum of History donated the display case, he said. "Anything from the American Civil War that you can trace back to the owner, you know, it adds a premium to artifacts," Middleton said in an interview Friday. "But to be able to physically hold something that a New Brunswicker owned, who served in the war — it's not something that happens every day ... you can physically connect an artifact to a person. It's just hard to put into words. I was just very excited. Very excited." Stevenson was born Nov. 30, 1836, in St. Andrews, N.B. In 1854 he graduated from King's College in Fredericton — now called the University of New Brunswick — and attended Harvard Medical School in 1859. He returned home to St. Andrews in 1861 and began practising medicine, but about three years later, in January 1864, he offered his services to the United States Medical Corp. Stevenson, who was white, was assigned as a surgeon with the 29th Connecticut Infantry, one of the African-American regiments that were raised after the Emancipation Proclamation — the announcement in January 1863 by then-president Abraham Lincoln that all people enslaved in the country were free. Stevenson's sword is nickel-plated steel with engravings on the blade. As a medical officer, Stevenson was entitled to wear a presentation or dress sword, Middleton added. "It's decorative. It's not sharp or anything like that. It's because doctors, they didn't fight battles," he said, adding that ceremonial swords from the 1800s are rare. Up to 50,000 Canadians, including Maritimers, took part in some capacity in the Civil War — a fact many people in this country are unaware of, he said. Middleton, president of the 20th Maine Co., a non-profit group that searches for Atlantic Canadians who served in the American Civil War, said his research has identified 29 Black Canadians who joined the 29th Connecticut, of which three were from New Brunswick and one from Nova Scotia. "Quite a number of doctors from Atlantic Canada went down,” Middleton said. I suppose it was a great way to hone their medical skills.” Stevenson fell sick in 1865 and died on Nov. 8 that year in New York, on his way back to New Brunswick. His remains were sent home, and he is buried in the St. Andrews rural cemetery. The New Brunswick Historical Society wants to organize a ceremony at the cemetery in spring or fall to honour Stevenson's service and memory, Middleton said, adding that he looks forward to the sword going on display in July. "It's almost come full circle," he said. "Where, how it disappeared 160 years ago we don't know, but, you know, it's turned up, and it's now here in New Brunswick." This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 27, 2024. Hina Alam, The Canadian Press See a typo/mistake? Have a story/tip? This has been shared 0 times 0 Shares Share by Email Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Print Share via Text Message Get your daily Victoria news briefing Email Sign Up More Science News An online debate over foreign workers in tech shows tensions in Trump's political coalition Dec 27, 2024 12:43 PM New York state government to monitor its use of AI under a new law Dec 27, 2024 12:37 PM An online debate over foreign workers in tech shows tensions in Trump's political coalition Dec 27, 2024 10:43 AM
WARNING: Distressing content. Pets are being left bloodied and abused as calls mount for more hotels and domestic violence crisis centres to accommodate pets. New research has found rates of domestic violence related assault, and non-DV related assault, spike significantly over the holiday period in NSW. New Year’s Day appeared to have the worst increase, with an average of 157 incidents recorded, 118 per cent higher than usual, according to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. Christmas Day and Boxing Day also recorded significant spikes. Southern Cross Vet founder and owner Dr Sam Sorauer called for more to be done to allow women to leave DV situations with their pets. He is calling for more hotels and crisis centres to accommodate the animals. news.com.au mental health helplines Dr Sorauer said he’d seen the “extreme lengths” partners go in an attempt to maintain control over victim-survivors. “I’ve seen dogs and cats that have been beaten to the point of being bloodied on their nose and eyes,” Dr Sorauer said. “The perpetrator will send pictures to the ex-partner to lure them to go look after their pet because they’ve just lost power since the persons left. “If they do take the leap of faith to leave the violent relationship, (sometimes) they have to leave their pets behind to save themselves.” He also said in some cases perpetrators “won’t feed the animal, won’t give them water, won’t brush them and they come to us in an anorexic state”. WOMEN LEAVING VIOLENT RELATIONSHIPS “MOST IMPORTANT THING” Southern Cross Vet provides crisis accommodation for the pets of women leaving DV situations across four clinics in NSW and Queensland — including one in Surry Hills — as well as unlimited care for the pets such as vaccinations and anxiety medication. The initiative is funded through Project HoPe, a program founded by Dr Sorauer in 2013 initially to support the pets of homeless people, however it has since expanded to victim-survivors of DV. “A lot of these dogs and cats in DV situations have anxiety ... Symptoms of panic disorder and general anxiety because of all the violence around them,” Dr Sorauer said. He said pets are often scared of loud noises such as shouting after being exposed to DV situations, and he often starts them on anti-anxiety medication when they present to the clinic. “The biggest thing is just wanting these people to know there is a safe place conveniently located in Sydney where they can take their animals,” he said. “The most important thing is that that woman gets out of that violent relationship, we’ll take care of the rest.” He also noted people are able to come visit their pets while they board with the clinic. “We encourage them to come play, feed them, walk them — some people just use us as a place for the dog to sleep at night,” he said. Dr Sorauer said demand for boarding pets typically increased over holiday periods. “This time of year is 50/50 — it’s joyous for half the population and sad for the other half,” he said. “It’s a time of change and flux for these people, so having stability in a companion animal is so important. He said he hopes to see a lot of animals brought in over the holiday period because it would mean they are “potentially saving the lives of women in DV situations”. He assured people the entire process is confidential. “The animal comes in, has a consult with the vet – either with victim-survivor present or not – for a physical exam ...(make sure) routine care is up to date, assess them for any treatments they might need urgently, then really prepare one of the suites for one of them to stay for as long as that person needs,” Dr Sorauer said. He emphasised there’s “absolutely no time limit” on boarding pets. “We know how hard it is, even our clients telling us how hard it is to find any rentals at the moment, especially if they’ve got a pet, but we worry if we put a time limit on it then the victim-survivor might ... go back to that relationship,” Dr Sorauer said. “But there’s no time limit for them to be with us.” While they are closed some public holidays, nurses and vets often take turns taking the pets home over the weekend. According to the NSW state government’s 2022 Domestic Violence Crisis Accommodation Functional Design Brief, the government is working to “include communal and private spaces which are flexible, inclusive, and diverse to cater to women, children of all ages and pets of all types” in crisis accommodation. It’s also understood the government funds 94 women’s refuges across the state. news.com.au mental health helplines
An online debate over foreign workers in tech shows tensions in Trump's political coalitionNEW ORLEANS (AP) — A 93-year-old former Catholic priest sentenced to life in prison earlier this month for raping a teenage boy has died, Louisiana authorities and his lawyer confirmed Friday. Less than two weeks after being sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars, Lawrence Hecker died of natural causes at 3 a.m. Thursday at the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center, according to Ken Pastorick, Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections communications director. Hecker had pleaded guilty to charges including first-degree rape and aggravated kidnapping shortly before jury selection for his long-delayed trial had been scheduled to begin earlier this month, with other victims prepared to testify against him. The survivor of the assault to which Hecker pleaded guilty had said that Hecker raped him after offering to instruct him in wrestling moves ahead of tryouts for a school team in the mid-1970s. “The only prayer I can come up with I hope he spends eternity in hell after God's judgment of him,” the survivor said in a written statement provided by his attorney, Richard Trahant. “Now after his death I feel vindicated and free,” he said. The Associated Press does not identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted. Hecker's trial had been delayed for months partly because of questions around his mental competency. Hecker had suffered from dementia, his lawyer Bobby Hjortsberg said. Hecker had been ordained as an archdiocesan priest in 1958 and remained in this position even after facing an undisputed complaint of child molestation in the late 1980s, according to court records . Hecker left the ministry in 2002. Hecker's conviction occurred amid a wave of sexual abuse allegations against the Catholic church in New Orleans, many resurfacing from decades ago. The fallout has left the Archdiocese of New Orleans embroiled in bankruptcy negotiations. Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Brook on the social platform X: @jack_brook96 This story has been updated to clarify that Hecker died at the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center. Authorities had previously stated he died at a Baton Rouge hospital.
Vanguard Extended Market ETF (NYSEARCA:VXF) Shares Sold by Kingsview Wealth Management LLCHow the stock market defied expectations again this year, by the numbersImran merely an excuse to target Pak nukes, missiles: Bilawal
There is no legal bar for BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia to participate in the next general election, said Attorney General Md Asaduzzaman yesterday. "The false cases filed against Khaleda Zia have already been settled," he said. The attorney general was speaking at a shadow parliament organised by Debate for Democracy at the FDC in the capital. "If convicted of killing in July, many Awami League leaders, including Sheikh Hasina, would be ineligible to participate in the election," he said. AL's participation is not crucial to make elections inclusive, he added. "Those who destroyed the election process, tore the constitution apart, and violated people's rights have been identified as the villains of history." The attorney general also said the martyrs of the July uprising will forever be remembered as great heroes. This revolution was driven by the spirit of the Liberation War and the determination to build a Bangladesh free from discrimination. "Efforts are being made to undermine the achievements of this revolution, but no conspirator will succeed." Chairman of Debate for Democracy Hasan Ahmed Chowdhury Kiron said former chief justice Khairul Haque had annulled the caretaker government process with the malicious intention of keeping the previous fascist Awami League government in power indefinitely. "The fallen Awami League government deprived the people of their right to vote. The Awami League has completely destroyed the electoral process through fraudulent, one-sided, and midnight elections," he said. In the last three elections, the Election Commission, administration, police, returning officers, and polling officers and others were guilty of fraud, he added. "All those who committed these electoral crimes must be brought to justice." Kiron made 10 recommendations to ensure future elections are fair and acceptable. These include taking initiatives to bring to justice all those involved in electoral crimes, including members of the Election Commission; implementing strict legal provisions to prevent corrupt individuals from participating in elections; repealing all laws that may hinder the media from freely reporting on elections; and ensuring that the EC is independent. There is no legal bar for BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia to participate in the next general election, said Attorney General Md Asaduzzaman yesterday. "The false cases filed against Khaleda Zia have already been settled," he said. The attorney general was speaking at a shadow parliament organised by Debate for Democracy at the FDC in the capital. "If convicted of killing in July, many Awami League leaders, including Sheikh Hasina, would be ineligible to participate in the election," he said. AL's participation is not crucial to make elections inclusive, he added. "Those who destroyed the election process, tore the constitution apart, and violated people's rights have been identified as the villains of history." The attorney general also said the martyrs of the July uprising will forever be remembered as great heroes. This revolution was driven by the spirit of the Liberation War and the determination to build a Bangladesh free from discrimination. "Efforts are being made to undermine the achievements of this revolution, but no conspirator will succeed." Chairman of Debate for Democracy Hasan Ahmed Chowdhury Kiron said former chief justice Khairul Haque had annulled the caretaker government process with the malicious intention of keeping the previous fascist Awami League government in power indefinitely. "The fallen Awami League government deprived the people of their right to vote. The Awami League has completely destroyed the electoral process through fraudulent, one-sided, and midnight elections," he said. In the last three elections, the Election Commission, administration, police, returning officers, and polling officers and others were guilty of fraud, he added. "All those who committed these electoral crimes must be brought to justice." Kiron made 10 recommendations to ensure future elections are fair and acceptable. These include taking initiatives to bring to justice all those involved in electoral crimes, including members of the Election Commission; implementing strict legal provisions to prevent corrupt individuals from participating in elections; repealing all laws that may hinder the media from freely reporting on elections; and ensuring that the EC is independent.
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ABUJA – The House of Representatives has approved for the second reading a bill seeking to establish the National Commission for Technology Transfer, Acquisition, and Promotion. The proposed bill according to lawmakers, will play a pivotal role in monitoring the inflow of foreign products and technology into Nigeria. It aims to enhance local capacity, regulate the adoption of foreign technologies, and ensure the strategic transfer of technology for national development. The sponsor of a new bill, Hon. Clement Jimbo from Akwa Ibom State, has emphasized its potential to harness Nigeria’s vast and active population to create jobs, particularly for the youth. According to him, the proposed legislation seeks to stimulate the processing of raw materials into finished goods, increase the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and facilitate the transfer of advanced technology to Nigeria. Leading the debate on the bill’s general principles, the PDP lawmaker highlighted the overarching goal of the legislation: ensuring value addition to the country’s solid minerals exploration. He argued that by focusing on regular value addition, Nigeria can unlock the full economic potential of its natural resources and position itself as a competitive player in the global market.
It’s the time of year when people publish retrospectives on the year and start thinking about the year ahead. As so much of my work ends up in CleanTechnica , I thought it would be useful to provide my retrospective here. On a purely personal note, I’ve been told over and over again this year by people I’ve had conversations with how much more optimistic about addressing climate change they are after talking with me. They hear the broad suite of solutions we have, and they hear the progress we are making and it’s refreshing to them after the more typical doom scrolling that’s so endemic to people toiling in niches of the decarbonization space. That extended to the perhaps dozen people I mentored this year. I get asked regularly by people of multiple ages and backgrounds how they can pivot into a career which makes a positive climate difference. I’ve been blessed by having excellent mentors over the years and giving back with what advice I can provide is something I consider a duty and a privilege. I published on that not long ago after yet another mentoring discussion, this one with a sciences graduate from Cambridge. While the mentoring and many things I do are pro bono, my professional life has been good this year as well. Leveraging both my global technology career and my climate focus, I’m one of the founders and principals of Trace Intercept , a firm which leverages the latest in 3D capture, rendering and artificial intelligence technologies to assist infrastructure laden companies deal with maintaining the built environment in western countries, starting with water and roads in the UK. Digital twins are often built without clear business cases and using technologies which have in many cases diverged from one another — lidar and machine learning image recognition for example —, and with a new toolkit, much more rapid, much less expensive and much more focused digital twins can deliver clear business value quickly. Two repeat clients, a North American renewables developer and a European green infrastructure fund, engaged me to assist them as they considered pumped hydro investments. I have a good set of contacts in the space due to my focus on grid storage globally, and a strong perspective on where energy is going. In one case, I assisted to get energy projections through 2060 for the British Isles aligned to a more reasonable scenario to help with business casing for investment. A well funded private individual engaged me to destruction test his idea of using the USA’s west coast hydroelectric dams as passive storage linked with HVDC instead as baseload. The problem isn’t technological or economic, as that’s been being explored and acted upon in northern Europe for over a decade. In the USA it’s the water treaties, the complex stakeholder sets and lack of market mechanisms. As I always like to remind people, Nicholson’s Chinatown was about water rights for Los Angeles. Sadly for the individual, I didn’t shoot holes in the idea which had been obsessing for months, but instead left him with a different set of work to do to try to realize it. A European compressed gas storage startup engaged me to destruction test the technology that they’d been working on for a couple of years. They and their team had spent years in offshore oil and gas in the North Sea providing deeply technical products, and thought they had an insight about how to leverage carbon dioxide and underground storage. Sadly, in that case, I had to do a quick thermodynamics work up using the appropriate simplified ideal gas law equation and let them know that they were looking at a maximum of 13% round trip efficiency. They had another solution in the hopper that they’d been working on in parallel, and were able to devote their time to something that would be more productive. In March a roughly year long process came to fruition for me. In 2023, a European contact had asked me to assist them to set up an EU-funded dialogue between EU and Canadian governmental, academic and oil and gas industry stakeholders. I reached out to contacts at major consultancies to bid on the effort, and Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors won the initiative. I helped them with the preparation collateral and facilitated one of the sessions, a key in-person day in Calgary. My efforts to bring Canada closer to Europe were rewarding professionally, intellectually and personally, and my knowledge of methane’s role in global warming and what we can do about it deepened substantially. I have ongoing engagements as an advisor as well. Flimax, the UK-based electric aviation startup, continues to chug along, surviving the couple of years post-SPAC cleantech debacle and origami evtol distraction, and continuing to refine the engineering. A British Isles family fund focused on impact investing engaged me to provide ongoing insights to assist them to sharpen their targeted investments for the best outcomes, and I’m in the midst of working through strategy sessions with the team that they’ve assembled around one of those levers of change now. I learn a lot engaging over an extended period of time, as I did with Agora Energy Technologies around their carbon dioxide based redox flow battery. Then there were the dozen or so short, sharp expert consultation engagements. I get asked to help major consultancies and venture capitalists to assess very specific topics in decarbonization fairly regularly. A major international venture capital firm engaged me to talk about US rail electrification. Bent Flyvbjerg’s — author of How Big Things Get Done — firm Oxford Global Projects engaged me to help them understand aspects of cement decarbonization. A major consultancy needed some expert input on battery technologies. Last, and far from least, I’m now an expert witness in lawsuits being brought in California against Toyota on behalf of all of the purchasers of Toyota Mirais who sincerely thought they were buying reliable cars that were just like gas cars, and instead found that they couldn’t use them because they couldn’t get hydrogen in any remotely reliable way. One conversation I had this year was with a woman who had believed California and Toyota’s assertions about hydrogen cars and bought a Mirai to try to do the right thing. She was at risk of losing her job because she needed to be able to drive between four locations every week and couldn’t. Writing a 27 page affidavit that included my findings on California’s deeply unreliable hydrogen refueling stations, how Toyota had no chance of not knowing that they were unreliable, as — among other things — it was paying for their maintenance, and yet was constantly making false advertising claims was a fun exploration. I’ll be testifying in the new year, hopefully getting some economic justice for the Californians who have been suffering. I suspect it might not be the last expert witness engagement I get around hydrogen. On the publication front, the most common adjective I hear is prolific, and I hear it a lot. I write like Usain Bolt runs, which helps a lot, but it’s part of my process of understanding. If I can’t express something in reasonably clear English, I don’t understand it myself and won’t remember it very well either. And, of course, I live by post-publication humiliation when I get things wrong, as I do occasionally. Certainly there are people who remain convinced I’m wrong about hydrogen for transportation, but that’s not because they find errors in my work, it’s because they refuse to accept economic and technical reality. This year saw me engaged in three book projects. Joe Romm, giant in US clean energy, Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in the U.S. Department of Energy during the Clinton administration and currently working with Michael Mann at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media, asked me to do a technical review of the 20th anniversary update of his book The Hype About Hydrogen . That will be coming out in April of this year, so watch for it. In 2023, Bill Nagy asked me to contribute to a book on climate solutions. The book, Proven Climate Solutions: Leading Voices on How To Accelerate Change , came out in June of this year and included contributions by a stellar list of authors including Dr. Audrey Lee, Mark Z. Jacobson, Dr. Nancy Ryan, Dr. Robert Howarth. I was privileged and humbled to be among such luminaries. Lesley O’Connor, global renewables executive through Mainstream Renewables and now a Director of the firm, asked me to assist her and a small team with the second edition of Super Grid Super Solution: A Handbook for Energy Independence and a Europe Free from Fossil Fuels . The team included Kevin O’Sullivan, editor and now environment editor of the Irish Times, Christian Kjaer, chair of currENT Europe, a trade association devoted to grid innovation, and Val Cummins, Chief Impact Officer and Portfolio Director of Emerald and Western Star Joint Ventures with EDF at Simply Blue Group. I learned a lot from this talented and passionate group, and once again was privileged and humbled to help bring the late Eddie O’Connor’s book with O’Sullivan up to date and back into the forefront of Europe’s transmission strategy discussions. This year I added another major industry to my scenarios of decarbonization through 2100, cement . I wrote something like 44,000 words across over a dozen lengthy articles exploring every facet of the gray glue that binds the modern world together. Triggered by a couple of startups in the space, concrete day turned into concrete week, then month and then almost two months. As I noted at the time, my dinner party conversation was especially scintillating during that period. (Obligatory Poe’s Law warning.) That effort led to a US engineering professor to reach out to ask for my collaboration in a peer-reviewed policy guidance paper for cement decarbonization. I reviewed the final draft just before Christmas and it will be submitted to the journal in January for publication later next year. Reading the final draft made me remember how broad a net I’d cast in looking at how we were going to address the climate problem that is cement, from software tools to geopolymers to cross-laminated timber to the end of China’s infrastructure boom. Ocean geoengineering finally resurfaced for me. I’d looked at it in the late 2010’s, but my chemistry and biology basics were too weak to get through it. I’ve upgraded those STEM skills, dusting off my year of pure science and math from before I pivoted to something that would put food on the table, and could do the subject justice. And this year was a target rich environment for assessments, with half a dozen startups being touted as magic bullets, featuring approaches as diverse as magnesium dioxide, green sand beaches and electrochemical carbon dioxide removal from and addition to seawater. That led to me assisting a BC-based environmental lawyer with her presentation to Canada’s Senate hearings on the subject, and possibly a Senate presentation of my own in the new year. One of my assessments that received a great deal of attention this year was my portfolio review of the Bill Gates’ founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures. My findings were that a full 38% of companies by both count and value were dead ends, not passing technical due diligence or even close. A full 10% more were just off base for a venture capital fund. Firms which picked alternative rocks to make cement from but didn’t acknowledge that 90% solid waste silicates made it nonviable, firms which proposed to put wind turbine wings on a loop of clotheslines repeating a couple of failures in the past when it was tried, firms which were all about hydrogen for energy, firms focused on nuclear fusion and more, the fund was littered with wasted investments that wouldn’t and couldn’t lead to climate solutions. The fund was founded by billionaires who didn’t accept that renewables were the breakthrough, that batteries were the breakthrough, that electric vehicles were the breakthrough and arrogantly instilled their biases into the investment theses of the fund. The fund is staffed by frequently brilliant, deeply educated people who have a very cushy job confirming the biases of the billionaires, so don’t rock the boat and keep contrarian views — like mine — away from their boss’ eyes. I can’t tell you the number of people who have let me know that they’ve tried to get my material in front of Gates and the fund and bounced off the bubble. I had a lot of excellent conversations with investors as a result of that assessment, including a fun episode of Redefining Energy, the leading energy transition podcast hosted by Gerard Reid and Laurent Segalen. That episode was the most downloaded of the year for them, providing quite a few of the 500,000 downloads they saw this year. Peer-review seems to be becoming a part of my life, although I’m not trying to have that happen. The editor in chief of the Journal of Sustainable Marketing reached out to request a piece on electrifying supply chains for competitive advantage . That worked its way through the process and was published mid-year. Hydrogen of course reared its invisible, expensive and unreliable head. The biggest effort I put in was a series around hydrogen transportation failures, triggered by Canada’s municipal transit agencies actually selecting hydrogen buses to be part of their blended fleets. A lot of that was related to a report jointly authored by Canadian transit ‘think’ tank CUTRIC and Deloitte for the city of Brampton. That report claimed that a blended fleet of 700 battery electric and 400 hydrogen buses was cheapest, but it was possibly the worst report of the type I’ve seen. On a $9 billion cost work up, the claim was that the blended fleet was $10 million — an immaterial 0.1% — cheaper than the battery electric only fleet. Michael Raynor, formerly a managing director of sustainability and thought leadership for Deloitte and author of four books on innovation and strategy, and I identified $1.5 billion in errors in the report that allowed that false conclusion to be reached. The smallest error I identified was $10 million by itself, which is why the 0.1% difference shouldn’t have been considered remotely relevant on a scenario assessment stretching through 2040. How could they get it so scandalously wrong? All fingers point to CUTRIC, which is riddled with conflicts of interest and incompetent to do reports like this. Three Board members are from firms which get potentially hundreds of millions more if hydrogen buses are chosen, and two get nothing if only battery electric buses are chosen. Enbridge, Ballard Power and New Flyer have seats on the Board, pay the biggest membership fees and undoubtedly open their pocketbooks as needed for initiatives that favor them. Raynor and I have already met with councillors and the city manager of one of Canada’s major cities to try to help them find a way out of this mess. Attendees at Canada’s annual transit conference tell me it was the talk of the day, and that many members of CUTRIC were going to yank their funding. Expect this house of cards to continue to crumble through 2024. As part of that series, I extended a list of hydrogen bus trials that Professor David Cebon, founder of the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight at Cambridge and co-founder of the Hydrogen Science Coalition, had put together to get a complete global list. There are more abandoned trials than bus fleets with operating hydrogen buses. Then I did the same for hydrogen rail trials , where failure and abandonment abounds as well. And then I did the same for maritime hydrogen trials , which found yet more sinking of expensive dreams. The most egregious greenwashing on open water was Norled’s sole operating hydrogen ferry, which has double the greenhouse gas emissions of the diesel ferry it replaced, 40 times the emissions of the battery electric ferry that operates on the same triangular route and ten times the fuel expense as the electric ferry. That led to a piece I hope will have a serious impact in 2025, a survey of much stiffened environmental truth in advertising laws around the world. My work up of hydrogen bus and ferry emissions based on peer-reviewed hydrogen global warming potential and leakage rates make it clear that it’s against the law in most countries to call hydrogen vehicles zero emissions or even low emissions. Thankfully, I’ve also spent a considerable amount of time on real transportation solutions. My series with Rish Ghatikar, distinguished US energy leader, formerly Deputy Leader for Grid Integration Research at Berkeley Lab, Chief Research Officer at Shell Recharge Solutions and most recently Energy Fellow at General Motors, is a strategic assessment and action plan for US charging microgrids with solar and buffering batteries that will be increased incrementally in size over time as electric freight truck penetration grows. It combines a future proof strategy with enabling charging to start soon, and is targeted at logistics giants like Amazon, Proviso and Walmart, major truck stop chains like Loves and Pilot, and major engineering, procurement and construction firms focused on those customers like TLM. The series is being published in bi-weekly increments through early January, and then will be assembled into a report under the CleanTechnica banner early in the new year. The latest article, on the use of intelligent incrementalism to overcome key hurdles identified in earlier articles, just dropped. It’s been a good year for impactful presentations as well. Most recently, I was in Brussels at the book launch for Supergrid Super Solutions , speaking alongside an EU energy minister, a member of European Parliament and other luminaries on the subject of the absolute necessity for Europe to build a mesh direct current supergrid rapidly to remain competitive. My prepared remarks were on how China was absolutely dominating this space globally, how rapidly it was moving and how Europe was being left behind. During the discussion, a key topic was how Europe was going to pay for the transmission it needed, and my contribution was the modest proposal that they stop wasting absurd amounts of money on hydrogen for energy and carbon capture and storage. This year also saw an extended seminar series with Indian electrical utility professionals through the auspices of the India Smart Grid Forum. They engaged me to deliver a plenary session at the annual India Smart Utility Week conference of my short list of climate actions that will work , and then follow up with a seminar on each of the actions. It was excellent to spend a lot more time understanding the major economy of India and its challenges and opportunities in decarbonization. It’s assisted me to now include comparisons of trajectories of Europe, the United States, China and India in multiple assessments, bringing much greater clarity to the transition. The Green Builder Sustainability Symposium hosted me as well at their annual conference. Their model is a small number of high impact virtual presentations over two half days, something that emerged in the long-running series during COVID and is staying. I spoke between Jon Creyts, the CEO filling Amory Lovin’s big boots at RMI, and Jeremy Rifkin, author of the deeply unfortunate The Hydrogen Economy and guide to politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. Regular readers might remember that I provided a 14,000 word assessment of RMI’s hydrogen efforts and some strong strategic guidance on how they could get on the right path in that domain again in January of 2024. Amusingly, Creyts’ staff asked the conference organizers if I was going to lay into RMI again in my presentation, but my prepared remarks were on Our Low Carbon Future , a vision of what the clean, electrically powered world of tomorrow will look like. It’s worth noting the reach I’ve achieved this year. On LinkedIn , my posts have been read 2.7 million times by 560,000 professionals. Also on LinkedIn, over 27,000 professionals now follow me, with the top categories being founders, chief executive officers and managing directors. My podcast, Redefining Energy – Tech saw 50,000 downloads this year. There’s no easy way to say how many times my articles on CleanTechnica have been read, but I wrote about 200 of them and each is read by thousands of people, sometimes tens of thousands, so having reached a million reads through this channel is in the right ballpark. Then there are the multiple conversations I had over the year with investors who told me I’d saved them from being in bad investments just through my publications. I’m now a key step in due diligence for many firms it seems, in that if they are considering a startup or technology, they see if I published on it. One investor stepped away from a Board position in a firm because he realized the firm was going to end up in the SEC’s crosshairs after following up on some of the things I’d pointed out. Another was in the middle of due diligence on a firm for the greenlight committee in part because I hadn’t published my opinion of it, which I shared with them to their dismay. My goal is to have the trillions that we need to spend to get to our low carbon future spent more wisely and quickly, so I don’t mind — much — that big investment funds are getting pro bono guidance. 2024 was the year when I finally embraced the title climate futurist. People have been referring to me that way for a few years, and I always resisted it, feeling it was pretentious. But given that I keep doing decades-long scenarios of major climate change problem areas and levers, I am regularly consulted on what the future is bringing and my predictions track record is surprisingly good, I finally had to get over my innate Canadianness and put it on my virtual business cards and presentations. For those who read this far, my dance card for 2025 isn’t full. The amazing breadth of things I was able to do this year were because people reached out and asked me to collaborate with them. If you are working on something impactful, reach out. Perhaps I can help. CleanTechnica's Comment Policy LinkedIn WhatsApp Facebook Bluesky Email Reddit
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MIAMI , Dec. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Gary Brecka , wife Sage Workinger and respective entities, IJS and TPH, today filed significant lawsuits related to their partnership with Cardone Ventures, LLC. The first complaint is a $100M defamation lawsuit filed by Brecka and Workinger against Elena Cardone , wife of Grant Cardone who co-founded 10X Health with Brecka and Workinger. It details the process by which Mrs. Cardone launched an allegedly intentional smear campaign designed to damage Brecka's reputation, including making false incendiary social media posts and nefarious public statements. The second complaint names Cardone Ventures LLC, a consulting firm claiming to help founders scale their businesses, and its CEO Brandon Dawson as defendants. The complaint details predatory efforts by Dawson and Cardone Ventures to take over 10X Health and edge out Brecka and Workinger through nefarious means and breaches of contractual agreements. Individuals who have worked with Cardone Ventures or CEO Brandon Dawson and may have information or similar complaints may call 305-603-0805 to leave confidential information for legal team review. Editor's Note #1: Copies of both complaints are included with this press release or available upon request. Exhibit information is also available upon request. Editor's Note #2: Brecka and Workinger are available for phone and on-camera interviews. Contact: Josh Merkin rbb communications (954) 789-5530 View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/renowned-human-biologist-and-longevity-expert-gary-brecka-files-100m-defamation-claim-against-elena-cardone-and-lawsuit-against-cardone-ventures-in-response-to-questionable-business-practices-302339380.html SOURCE IJS and TPHFederal Reserve Board Penalizes Two Banks for Compliance Deficiencies
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