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By Lisa Baertlein and Eric Beech LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday appeared to back the anti-automation stance of some 45,000 union dockworkers on the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts, whose labor talks are at an impasse over that polarizing issue. The ILA and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) employer group are facing a Jan. 15 deadline to finalize talks, which stalled over cargo-handling automation. That deadline comes just five days before Trump's inauguration. The ILA says automation kills jobs while employers say it is necessary to keep U.S. ports competitive in a rapidly changing global economy. "The amount of money saved is nowhere near the distress, hurt, and harm it causes for American Workers, in this case, our Longshoremen," Trump said of automation projects in a post on Truth Social. That message followed a meeting with Harold Daggett, who leads the International Longshoremen's Association union that represents the port workers, Trump said. The two sides agreed to end a three-day strike on Oct. 3 after the union won a 62% wage hike over six years with significant involvement by the White House and other officials from President Joe Biden's administration. Employers, which include the U.S. operations of Switzerland's Mediterranean Shipping Company, Denmark's Maersk and China's COSCO Shipping, have been booking record profits in part due to access to U.S. markets, Trump said on Thursday. "I'd rather these foreign companies spend it on the great men and women on our docks, than machinery, which is expensive, and which will constantly have to be replaced," Trump said of the industry's profit. "It's clear President-elect Trump, USMX, and the ILA all share the goal of protecting and adding good-paying American jobs at our ports," USMX said in a statement. "We need modern technology that is proven to improve worker safety, boost port efficiency, increase port capacity, and strengthen our supply chains," the employers said, adding that dockworkers make more money when seaports move more goods. (Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington and Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Jasper Ward and Bill Berkrot)
The new Queensland government’s contentious ‘adult crime, adult time’ laws to address teen crime have passed parliament, marking a major win for Premier David Crisafulli. Mr Crisafulli made teen crime a cornerstone of his campaign for the October 26 state election, promising the new laws would pass before Christmas. The landmark Making Queensland Safer Bill 2024 were introduced into parliament on November 28 and passed on Thursday, 13 days before Christmas. Mr Crisafulli had made no secret of his promise to crack down on high-profile youth crime and introduce “adult time for adult crime” during and after his campaign. Premier David Crisafulli had made the adult crime, adult time a key promise during the election campaign for the October 26 election. Picture: NewsWire / John Gass “These laws are for every Queenslander who has ever felt unsafe and been a victim of youth crime across our state,” Mr Crisafulli said on Thursday. “Queenslanders voted for it, we’ve delivered it and now Adult Crime, Adult Time will be law before Christmas. “These laws are the first strike back against the Youth Crime Crisis to start restoring safety where you live. “We have restored consequences for actions and put victims’ rights ahead of offenders, as they always should have been.” Under the new laws, juvenile offenders who commit some of the most serious crimes will now face the same penalties as adult offenders, with the state government promising to put “the rights of victims” ahead of offenders. It would mean children convicted of murder would face the penalty of life detention. Currently, they face 10 years or up to life imprisonment if a court finds the offence was “particularly heinous”. Premier David Crisafulli met with victims of crime before the Adult Time, Adult Crime Bill passed parliament. Picture: NewsWire / John Gass Victims of teen crime, including Chris Sanders (centre), had backed the LNP on the new laws. Picture: NewsWire / John Gass Other offences subject to the “adult crime, adult time” range include manslaughter, unlawful striking causing death, grievous bodily harm, wounding, serious assault, home and business break-ins and robbery and dangerous operation of vehicles. Detention as a last resort would also be removed from the Youth Justice Act. Mr Crisafulli previously told parliament the new laws would change how young offenders were sentenced. This would include allowing the courts to consider their full criminal history at sentencing – including their juvenile record – when they are sentenced as an adult for a five-year period. In 2023, Labor introduced a raft of changes following outcry over high-profile crimes involving young offenders, including the murder of North Lakes mum Emma Lovell. Emma Lovell was killed by a teenager in a home invasion in 2022. Picture: Supplied CCTV (blurred) of the home invasion where Emma Lovell was fatally stabbed. Picture: Supplied Under the changes, juveniles faced up to 14 years’ jail for stealing cars, with harsher penalties if they bragged about their crimes on social media. Then-premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said $9.89m would be fast-tracked for new sentencing programs in Brisbane, Townsville, Southport and Cairns so children spend “less time on remand and more time serving their sentences”. Youth Justice Minister Laura Gerber said the Making Queensland Safer Laws would work hand-in-hand with early intervention and rehabilitation. “Labor failed to act for a decade – they ignored victims, they ignored the warnings and ignored the chaos across Queensland,” Minister Gerber said. “Under Labor, youth criminals were given a free pass, the Crisafulli Government’s laws send a clear message that if you do the wrong thing, you will face the consequences. More Coverage Next step after teen cleared of murder Blake Antrobus Fed-up crowd rallies for action on youth crime Jessica Wang and Duncan Evans Originally published as Crisafulli government’s tough teen crime laws have become law in Queensland Breaking News Don't miss out on the headlines from Breaking News. Followed categories will be added to My News. Join the conversation Add your comment to this story To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout More related stories Breaking News G7 to meet on Syria, govt pledges ‘rule of law’ G7 to meet on Syria, govt pledges 'rule of law' Read more Cricket ‘It’s tough’: Aussie change confirmed for Brisbane Despite winning the second Test in Adelaide, Australia will make a single change to its line-up for the third clash with India in Brisbane. Read morePolice arrested a “strong person of interest” Monday in the brazen Manhattan killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO after a quick-thinking McDonald’s employee in Pennsylvania alerted authorities to a customer who was found with a weapon and writings linking him to the ambush. The 26-year-old man had a gun believed to be the one used in the killing and writings suggesting his anger with corporate America, police officials said. He was taken into custody after police got a tip that he was eating at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference. Police identified the suspect as Luigi Mangione. Mangione was born and raised in Maryland, has ties to San Francisco, and his last known address is in Honolulu, Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a news briefing. Here's the latest: When an officer asked Mangione if he’d been to New York recently, he “became quiet and started to shake,” the court documents say. A police criminal complaint charged him with forgery, carrying firearms without a license, tampering with records or identification, possessing an instrument of crime and providing false identification to law enforcement. Video posted on the social platform X shows a handcuffed Mangione arriving at the Blair County Courthouse in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. For example, it took about 10 months to extradite a man charged with stabbing two workers at the Museum of Modern Art in 2022. The suspect, Gary Cabana, was also arrested in Pennsylvania, where he was charged with setting his Philadelphia hotel room on fire. Cabana was sent back to New York after he pleaded guilty to an arson charge in Pennsylvania. Manhattan prosecutors could seek to expedite the process by indicting Mangione for Thompson’s killing while he’s still in custody of Pennsylvania authorities. They could then obtain what’s known as a supreme court warrant or fugitive warrant to get him back to New York. Freddie Leatherbury hasn’t spoken to Mangione since they graduated in 2016 from Gilman School in Maryland. He said Mangione was a smart, friendly and athletic student who came from a wealthy family, even by the private school’s standards. “Quite honestly, he had everything going for him,” Leatherbury said. Leatherbury said he was stunned when a friend shared the news of their former classmate’s arrest. “He does not seem like the kind of guy to do this based on everything I’d known about him in high school,” Leatherbury said. One of his cousins is Republican Maryland state legislator Nino Mangione, a spokesperson for the delegate’s office confirmed Monday. Luigi Mangione is one of 37 grandchildren of Nick Mangione Sr., according to a 2008 obituary. Mangione Sr. grew up poor in Baltimore’s Little Italy and rose after his World War II naval service to become a millionaire real estate developer and philanthropist, according to a 1995 profile by the Baltimore Sun. He and his wife Mary Cuba Mangione, who died in 2023, directed their philanthropy through the Mangione Family Foundation, according to a statement from Loyola University commemorating her death. They donated to a variety of causes, ranging from Catholic organizations to higher education to the arts. A man who answered the door to the office of the Mangione Family Foundation declined to comment Monday evening. Mangione Sr. was known for Turf Valley Resort, a sprawling luxury retreat and conference center outside Baltimore that he purchased in 1978. The father of 10 children, Nick Mangione Sr. prepared his five sons — including Luigi Mangione’s father, Louis Mangione — to help manage the family business, according to a 2003 Washington Post report. The Mangione family also purchased Hayfields Country Club north of Baltimore in 1986. On Monday afternoon, Baltimore County police officers had blocked off an entrance to the property, which public records link to Luigi Mangione’s parents. A swarm of reporters and photographers gathered outside the entrance. “Our hope is that today’s apprehension brings some relief to Brian’s family, friends, colleagues and the many others affected by this unspeakable tragedy,” a spokesperson for UnitedHealth Group said Monday. “We thank law enforcement and will continue to work with them on this investigation. We ask that everyone respect the family’s privacy as they mourn.” In an email to parents and alumni, Gilman headmaster Henry P.A. Smyth said it “recently” learned that Mangione, a 2016 graduate, was arrested in the CEO’s killing. “We do not have any information other than what is being reported in the news,” Smyth wrote. “This is deeply distressing news on top of an already awful situation. Our hearts go out to everyone affected.” Mangione, a high school valedictorian from a Maryland prep school, earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania, a spokesman told The Associated Press on Monday. He had learned to code in high school and helped start a club at Penn for people interested in gaming and game design, according to a 2018 story in Penn Today, a campus publication. His posts also suggest that he belonged to the fraternity Phi Kappa Psi. They also show him taking part in a 2019 program at Stanford University, and in photos with family and friends in Hawaii, San Diego, Puerto Rico, the New Jersey shore and other destinations. Police said the suspect arrested Monday had a ghost gun , a type of weapon that can be assembled at home from parts without a serial number, making them difficult to trace. The critical component in building an untraceable gun is what’s known as the lower receiver. Some are sold in do-it-yourself kits and the receivers are typically made from metal or polymer. Altoona police say officers were dispatched to a McDonald’s on Monday morning in response to reports of a male matching the description of the man wanted in connection with the United Healthcare CEO’s killing in New York City. In a news release, police say officers made contact with the man, who was then arrested on unrelated charges. The Altoona Police Department says it’s cooperating with local, state, and federal agencies. “This just happened this morning. We’ll be working, backtracking his steps from New York to Altoona, Pennsylvania,” Kenny said. “And at some point we’ll work out through extradition to bring him back to New York to face charges here, working with the Manhattan district attorney’s office,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. “As of right now, the information we’re getting from Altoona is that the gun appears to be a ghost gun that may have been made on a 3D printer, capable of firing a 9 mm round,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a news briefing. The document suggested the suspect had “ill will toward corporate America,” police added. Mangione, 26, was born and raised in Maryland, has ties to San Francisco, and his last known address in Honolulu, Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a news briefing. Police have arrested a 26-year-old with a weapon “consistent with” the gun used in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson , New York City’s police commissioner says. Thompson , 50, died in a dawn ambush Wednesday as he walked to the company’s annual investor conference at Manhattan hotel. Thompson had traveled from Minnesota for the event. A man being questioned Monday in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson had writings that appeared to be critical of the health insurance industry, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The man also had a gun thought to be similar to the one used in the killing, the official said. Police apprehended the man after receiving a tip that he had been spotted at a McDonald’s near Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 233 miles (375 kilometers) west of New York City, said the official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss details of the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. Along with the gun, police found a silencer and fake IDs, according to the official. — Michael R. Sisak That’s also according to the law enforcement official. — Michael R. Sisak That’s according to a law enforcement official. — Michael R. Sisak New York City Mayor Eric Adams is expected to address this development at a previously scheduled afternoon news briefing in Manhattan. While still looking to identify the suspect, the FBI has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction. That’s on top of a $10,000 reward offered by the NYPD. That included footage of the attack, as well as images of someone at a Starbucks beforehand. Photos taken in the lobby of a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side showed the person grinning after removing his mask, police said. NYPD dogs and divers returned to New York’s Central Park today while the dragnet for Thompson’s killer stretched into a sixth day. Investigators have been combing the park since the Wednesday shooting and searching at least one of its ponds for three days, looking for evidence that may have been thrown into it. Police say the shooter used a 9 mm pistol that resembled the guns farmers use to put down animals without causing a loud noise. Police said they had not yet found the gun itself. Ammunition found near Thompson’s body bore the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose,” mimicking a phrase used by insurance industry critics . A man with a gun thought to be similar to the one used in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was taken into police custody Monday for questioning in Pennsylvania, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The man is being held in the area of Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 233 miles (375 kilometers) west of New York City, the official said. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. The development came as dogs and divers returned Monday to New York’s Central Park while the dragnet for Thompson’s killer stretched into a sixth day. — Michael R. Sisak
EFF leader Julius Malema is set to challenge MK Party president Jacob Zuma over “unpaid legal fees” and he has his eyes on the former president's multimillion-rand Nkandla home. Malema has been aggrieved about MKP’s recruitment of former red berets leaders over the past three months. Several members of the EFF, including Malema’s former deputy Floyd Shivambu, have joined Zuma’s party. Speaking to thousands of party supporters outside the Constitutional Court, Malema assured them he would fight Zuma, including going after his assets. “We brought Zuma to the Constitutional Court and we said, ‘pay back the money,’ and he paid back the money and has not forgiven us for that. All the cases we won against Jacob Zuma he never paid the legal fees. Zuma owes us legal fees. We have a court order that he must pay us our money. He has not complied with the court order,” he said. “We have instructed our lawyer to attach Nkandla so that the man pays back the money. We want our money. He wants to play dirty, bring it on, bring us our money tomorrow [Wednesday] otherwise we are attaching Nkandla.” The EFF had brought scores of its supporters to the apex court where it was challenging parliament’s decision not to adopt a Section 89 panel report on Phala Phala. In 2016, the ConCourt ruled Zuma should pay back some of the money spent on improvements to his home in Nkandla. The EFF was involved in the legal row. It could be argued that the EFF was among Zuma's biggest critiques and ultimately led to his downfall after several years of ridicule in the National Assembly at the hands of the red berets. “We will not play nice with people who are playing rough with us. We are not in a church here, people cannot fight us and we give them roses. The fight is on. The fight is about defending the soul of the EFF and the unity of the EFF.” Malema's fierce rebuke of Zuma was evident during the party's activities over the past few days. In Limpopo, Malema sent a strong warning to his detractors within the party promising to deal with those who seek to betray him. This was followed by a speech in Gauteng were Malema told party members that the MK Party would not succeed in destroying the EFF. On Monday during a media briefing, Malema called the MK Party its enemy despite their alliance in parliament. Malema's theatrics are likely caused by growing dissent within the party as it prepares for its elective conference. The first signs that the EFF leadership was under strain came earlier in the year when reports indicated that Shivambu would be challenged for his position by its secretary-general Marshall Dlamini. This revelation came after Malema recalled Shivambu from KwaZulu-Natal where his deputy had failed to retain its support. The recall of the-then deputy president signalled problems for the party. Shortly after the elections and Shivambu's defection, another loyal ally, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, was suspected to be planning his exit. Ndlozi had been overlooked for several key positions within the party and relegated to the back of the leadership line. His influence over the student command resulted in public spats with some party members vowing to support him for the vacant deputy president position. Party members openly challenged Malema on social media platforms, which is uncharacteristic for the party. In an interview with the Sunday Times this week, Zuma said his plan was to take back the ANC by uniting black parties under his MK Party banner and recapturing the leadership of the party, which he said had deviated from its ancestors. He dismissed suggestions that the MK Party was poaching leaders from the EFF. “You can’t have everybody [joining] at one day, it will be something like a miracle. Other comrades come. Nobody is taking somebody [to move] from somebody else. All this time, before MK was established, people were moving from other parties to join others. This very same organisation you’re talking about, moved from this [ANC] organisation,” he told the Sunday Times.US President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into effect until his administration can pursue a “political resolution” to the issue. The request came as TikTok and the Biden administration filed opposing briefs to the court, in which the company argued the court should strike down a law that could ban the platform by January 19 while the government emphasised its position that the statute is needed to eliminate a national security risk. “President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19 2025, while it considers the merits of this case,” said Mr Trump’s amicus brief, which supported neither party in the case. The filings come ahead of oral arguments scheduled for January 10 on whether the law, which requires TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company or face a ban, unlawfully restricts speech in violation of the First Amendment. Earlier this month, a panel of three federal judges on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the statute, leading TikTok to appeal to the Supreme Court. The brief from Mr Trump said he opposes banning TikTok at this junction and “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office”.
It took 7 months, but today I finished coding my 2024 .NETpad modernization project. I also found another bug in WPF Windows 7 theming support. Of course I did. So let's start there. A new bug When Microsoft released .NET 9 in November, I was surprised to discover that it included a few small but important updates. Key among them was the ability to switch the app theme on the fly, a basic feature that was missing from the Windows 11 theming capabilities Microsoft had previously made available to developers during the .NET 9 pre-release development period. Until that change, you could make an app that conformed to whatever theme the user chose in Windows 11 Settings, and it would change on the fly if the user changed that theme. But there was no way to manually select a theme. For example, if the system theme is set to Dark but you (or the user) want to use the app in Light mode. Most modern Windows 11 apps support this feature. So, too, does Notepad. And I was sure that it would come to WPF at some point. In fact, I was so sure that I wrote the UI code for this interface in XAML, but left it grayed out since there was no way to change it on the fly. Here's how it looks. As I wrote in Modernizing .NETpad: .NET 9 Arrives with a Few (More) Small Improvements for WPF (Premium), Microsoft implemented this capability using a new Application.ThemeMode property in the styling API. And it's quite easy to use: I spun up a quick sample project in Visual Studio and created a button that toggled between Light, Dark, and System themes (the latter of which will be either Light or Dark, depending on what the user configures). Couldn't be easier. But when I added this code to .NETpad and tried to change the app theme, it would crash with an unhandled exception. I have multiple versions of the app, each a little different, so I tried it in three of them. But I always had the same issue. Whenever I changed the theme on-the-fly, the app crashed. Fantastic. Because I was winding down this project, I decided to not worry about it: I would add this feature early in a clean, new version of the app and then, once I had it working, I'd build it out and keep checking on this toggle to see when (or whether) it started crashing so I could hopefully isolate the problem. I wrote about this a bit in Modernizing .NETpad: WTF, WPF (Premium), in which I also discussed another small but important addition to the Windows 11 theming support in WPF in .NET 9, the new accent color support for the default button in dialogs. That feature, at least, seems to work fine, and I've implemented it in all the recent versions of the app I've worked up. But then I got side-tracked a bit. Experimenting on the side, I started getting the long-awaited tab support (and related window title bar customization) working. And so I started to think about, and then implement, the code that would be necessary to transition .NETpad from supporting a single document to one th... With technology shaping our everyday lives, how could we not dig deeper? Thurrott Premium delivers an honest and thorough perspective about the technologies we use and rely on everyday. Discover deeper content as a Premium member. Paul Thurrott is an award-winning technology journalist and blogger with 30 years of industry experience and the author of 30 books. He is the owner of and the host of three tech podcasts: with Leo Laporte and Richard Campbell, , and with Brad Sams. He was formerly the senior technology analyst at Windows IT Pro and the creator of the SuperSite for Windows from 1999 to 2014 and the Major Domo of Thurrott.com while at BWW Media Group from 2015 to 2023. You can reach Paul via , or . Join the crowd where the love of tech is real - become a Thurrott Premium Member today! Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each FridayBy HALELUYA HADERO, Associated Press President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into effect until his administration can pursue a “political resolution” to the issue. The request came as TikTok and the Biden administration filed opposing briefs to the court, in which the company argued the court should strike down a law that could ban the platform by Jan. 19 while the government emphasized its position that the statute is needed to eliminate a national security risk. “President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case,” said Trump’s amicus brief, which supported neither party in the case. The filings come ahead of oral arguments scheduled for Jan. 10 on whether the law, which requires TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company or face a ban, unlawfully restricts speech in violation of the First Amendment. Earlier this month, a panel of three federal judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld the statute , leading TikTok to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. The brief from Trump said he opposes banning TikTok at this junction and “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”Dick Vitale Announces He's Cancer Free