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More than 23,000 tags have been removed across Auckland city, thanks to an 'A-class' service provided by a social enterprise. Specifically, 3070 of these were removed from the Māngere- Ōtāhuhu local board area. The Beautification Trust has become a key player in South Auckland's efforts to maintain clean and vibrant communities. The Trust transitioned from an Auckland Council-controlled organisation to a South Auckland-based social enterprise in 2024. On Wednesday night, Community Programmes Manager Sterling Ruwhiu and Community Coordinator Erin Bowers presented to the Māngere-Ōtāhuhu Local Board, showcasing the Trust's ongoing contributions. "Our mission is to connect the power of communities to learn, love, and look after the environment. That's our kaupapa." "Tonight, we're also showing how our work impacts the community in three key areas: communities that take pride and feel safe, a healthier and cleaner environment, and empowered, connected communities," Bowers said. The income generated from the Trust's services is reinvested into its community programmes. Their work over the past financial year includes: Other significant initiatives include the official opening of the Manurewa Bike Hub, promoting low-carbon travel, and the success of the Manurewa Community Recycling Centre, which has diverted nearly 190,000 kg of waste from landfills in just two years. "We've had big success with our repair cafes and launched our Food Together pop-up. "Every Thursday, people can buy a $15 bag of fresh produce, which is 40-50 percent cheaper than supermarket prices. We also have volunteers at our recycling centre, as well as a small group from Spectrum Care contributing back to society," Ruwhiu said. The Trust hosted four repair cafes last year, successfully repairing 129 items and diverting 496 kg of waste from landfills, offsetting about 3400 kilograms of carbon emissions. The Trust mobilised 902 volunteer hours and engaged over 6000 children and youth in environmental education programmes like Eye On Nature and Wearable Arts. Eighteen Early Childhood Education (ECE) and primary schools participated in Eye On Nature, with 35 artworks submitted and over 200 children engaged. Additionally, 402 students from 19 schools entered 85 garments for Wearable Arts. Ruwhiu shared a story about two sisters involved in wearable art projects: "One little girl, Siruian, bio-engineered her plastic for her outfit, and her sister grew crystals to include in hers. That's the kind of innovation coming from our young people." Local board chair Tauanu'u Nick Bakulich commended the Trust's value to the community. "Every dollar is a dollar well spent in terms of the ratepayers' dollar. The responses we're getting, especially around graffiti removal, are A-class done within a very, very short time." Bakulich also suggested discussing how to increase applications from Māngere- Ōtāhuhu schools for wearable arts if funding is a limiting factor. Local Board Member Christine O'Brien praised the Trust's impact. "The impact on [graffiti removal] is just amazing," she said. She shared an example from Saleyards Road in Ōtāhuhu: "There was a guy who was going around between Vector and Auckland Transport, and the place was getting increasingly [messy]. "Within a day of me saying, 'Have you tried the Beautification [Trust]?' it's all gone, and [he was] really the happiest ... on earth. So thank you for that." Through its innovative programmes and strong partnerships, the Beautification Trust continues to promote sustainability and strengthen communities in South Auckland. LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.4mn411 。

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WASHINGTON (AP) — As a former and potentially future president, Donald Trump hailed what would become Project 2025 as a road map for “exactly what our movement will do” with another crack at the White House. As the blueprint for a hard-right turn in America became a liability during the 2024 campaign, Trump pulled an about-face . He denied knowing anything about the “ridiculous and abysmal” plans written in part by his first-term aides and allies. Now, after being elected the 47th president on Nov. 5, Trump is stocking his second administration with key players in the detailed effort he temporarily shunned. Most notably, Trump has tapped Russell Vought for an encore as director of the Office of Management and Budget; Tom Homan, his former immigration chief, as “border czar;” and immigration hardliner Stephen Miller as deputy chief of policy . Those moves have accelerated criticisms from Democrats who warn that Trump's election hands government reins to movement conservatives who spent years envisioning how to concentrate power in the West Wing and impose a starkly rightward shift across the U.S. government and society. Trump and his aides maintain that he won a mandate to overhaul Washington. But they maintain the specifics are his alone. “President Trump never had anything to do with Project 2025,” said Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt in a statement. “All of President Trumps' Cabinet nominees and appointments are whole-heartedly committed to President Trump's agenda, not the agenda of outside groups.” Here is a look at what some of Trump's choices portend for his second presidency. As budget chief, Vought envisions a sweeping, powerful perch The Office of Management and Budget director, a role Vought held under Trump previously and requires Senate confirmation, prepares a president's proposed budget and is generally responsible for implementing the administration's agenda across agencies. The job is influential but Vought made clear as author of a Project 2025 chapter on presidential authority that he wants the post to wield more direct power. “The Director must view his job as the best, most comprehensive approximation of the President’s mind,” Vought wrote. The OMB, he wrote, “is a President’s air-traffic control system” and should be “involved in all aspects of the White House policy process,” becoming “powerful enough to override implementing agencies’ bureaucracies.” Trump did not go into such details when naming Vought but implicitly endorsed aggressive action. Vought, the president-elect said, “knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State” — Trump’s catch-all for federal bureaucracy — and would help “restore fiscal sanity.” In June, speaking on former Trump aide Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Vought relished the potential tension: “We’re not going to save our country without a little confrontation.” Vought could help Musk and Trump remake government's role and scope The strategy of further concentrating federal authority in the presidency permeates Project 2025's and Trump's campaign proposals. Vought's vision is especially striking when paired with Trump's proposals to dramatically expand the president's control over federal workers and government purse strings — ideas intertwined with the president-elect tapping mega-billionaire Elon Musk and venture capitalist Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a “Department of Government Efficiency.” Trump in his first term sought to remake the federal civil service by reclassifying tens of thousands of federal civil service workers — who have job protection through changes in administration — as political appointees, making them easier to fire and replace with loyalists. Currently, only about 4,000 of the federal government's roughly 2 million workers are political appointees. President Joe Biden rescinded Trump's changes. Trump can now reinstate them. Meanwhile, Musk's and Ramaswamy's sweeping “efficiency” mandates from Trump could turn on an old, defunct constitutional theory that the president — not Congress — is the real gatekeeper of federal spending. In his “Agenda 47,” Trump endorsed so-called “impoundment,” which holds that when lawmakers pass appropriations bills, they simply set a spending ceiling, but not a floor. The president, the theory holds, can simply decide not to spend money on anything he deems unnecessary. Vought did not venture into impoundment in his Project 2025 chapter. But, he wrote, “The President should use every possible tool to propose and impose fiscal discipline on the federal government. Anything short of that would constitute abject failure.” Trump's choice immediately sparked backlash. “Russ Vought is a far-right ideologue who has tried to break the law to give President Trump unilateral authority he does not possess to override the spending decisions of Congress (and) who has and will again fight to give Trump the ability to summarily fire tens of thousands of civil servants,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a Democrat and outgoing Senate Appropriations chairwoman. Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, leading Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said Vought wants to “dismantle the expert federal workforce” to the detriment of Americans who depend on everything from veterans' health care to Social Security benefits. “Pain itself is the agenda,” they said. Homan and Miller reflect Trump's and Project 2025's immigration overl ap Trump’s protests about Project 2025 always glossed over overlaps in the two agendas . Both want to reimpose Trump-era immigration limits. Project 2025 includes a litany of detailed proposals for various U.S. immigration statutes, executive branch rules and agreements with other countries — reducing the number of refugees, work visa recipients and asylum seekers, for example. Miller is one of Trump's longest-serving advisers and architect of his immigration ideas, including his promise of the largest deportation force in U.S. history. As deputy policy chief, which is not subject to Senate confirmation, Miller would remain in Trump's West Wing inner circle. “America is for Americans and Americans only,” Miller said at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Oct. 27. “America First Legal,” Miller’s organization founded as an ideological counter to the American Civil Liberties Union, was listed as an advisory group to Project 2025 until Miller asked that the name be removed because of negative attention. Homan, a Project 2025 named contributor, was an acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director during Trump’s first presidency, playing a key role in what became known as Trump's “family separation policy.” Previewing Trump 2.0 earlier this year, Homan said: “No one’s off the table. If you’re here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.” Project 2025 contributors slated for CIA and Federal Communications chiefs John Ratcliffe, Trump's pick to lead the CIA , was previously one of Trump's directors of national intelligence. He is a Project 2025 contributor. The document's chapter on U.S. intelligence was written by Dustin Carmack, Ratcliffe's chief of staff in the first Trump administration. Reflecting Ratcliffe's and Trump's approach, Carmack declared the intelligence establishment too cautious. Ratcliffe, like the chapter attributed to Carmack, is hawkish toward China. Throughout the Project 2025 document, Beijing is framed as a U.S. adversary that cannot be trusted. Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, wrote Project 2025's FCC chapter and is now Trump's pick to chair the panel. Carr wrote that the FCC chairman “is empowered with significant authority that is not shared” with other FCC members. He called for the FCC to address “threats to individual liberty posed by corporations that are abusing dominant positions in the market,” specifically “Big Tech and its attempts to drive diverse political viewpoints from the digital town square.” He called for more stringent transparency rules for social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube and “empower consumers to choose their own content filters and fact checkers, if any.” Carr and Ratcliffe would require Senate confirmation for their posts.Drama as pastor demands N200bn in damages from Twitter user, details emergeBroncos Get Nice Injury Boost Ahead of Raiders Road Tilt - Sports Illustrated

Shohei Ohtani wins his third MVP and first in the NL following a historic offensive season with the Los Angeles DodgersZoran Milanovic, the opposition Social Democrats’ candidate, on track to win a second term in office, according to preliminary results. President Zoran Milanovic is on track to win a second term in office in the first round of Croatia’s presidential election, the State Electoral Commission says. Preliminary results from Sunday’s voting showed that based on results from nearly 52 percent of polling stations, Milanovic, the opposition Social Democratic Party’s candidate, was winning 50.1 percent of the votes, far ahead of his main challenger, Dragan Primorac, the candidate of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), with 22.3 percent. An exit poll conducted by Ipsos on Sunday also showed Milanovic, 58, was set to win. About 3.8 million Croats were eligible to vote from among eight candidates. The post of president is mostly ceremonial. Under Croatia’s electoral system, a candidate must secure at least 50 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off. The election will go to a second round on January 12 if none of the candidates wins a majority. During his five-year term, which expires on February 18, Milanovic, a former prime minister , has clashed with Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic over foreign and public policy and has fiercely criticised the European Union and NATO over their support for Ukraine. The president cannot veto laws but has a say in foreign policy, defence and security matters. Despite his populist rhetoric, Milanovic is seen by many as the only counterbalance to the HDZ-dominated government, 30 of whose ministers have been forced to leave in recent years due to corruption allegations . This election came as Croatia grapples with high inflation and a labour shortage. Milanovic previously won the presidency for the Social Democrats in 2020 with promises to promote tolerance and liberal values. While he has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Milanovic has been critical of Western military support for Kyiv, a stance that led Plenkovic to accuse him of being “pro-Russian” and “damaging” Croatia’s credibility. In response, Milanovic argued that his aim is to protect Croatia from being “dragged into war”. “As long as I am president, no Croatian soldier will fight in somebody else’s wars,” he said this month.Heidi Klum Nearly Bares It All While Revealing a Holiday ‘Tradition’ in New Video

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Students throughout Kenosha County named National Merit Scholarship semifinalistsSpecial Counsel Jack Smith on Monday moved to dismiss the federal cases against US President-elect Donald Trump -- including one for election subversion -- citing an official policy of not prosecuting a sitting president. Trump, 78, was accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden and mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House, but neither case ever came to trial. Smith, in a filing with the district judge in Washington presiding over the election case, said it should be dropped in light of the long-standing Justice Department policy of not indicting or prosecuting a sitting president. He cited the same reasoning in withdrawing his appeal of a ruling by a district judge, a Trump appointee, who dismissed the classified documents case earlier this year. Smith asked District Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss the election interference case "without prejudice" -- leaving open the possibility it could be revived after Trump leaves office four years from now. The special counsel paused the election interference case this month after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 presidential election. "The Government's position on the merits of the defendant's prosecution has not changed," Smith said in the filing with Chutkan. "But the circumstances have." "It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting President," Smith said. "As a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated." In a separate filing, Smith said he was withdrawing his appeal of the dismissal of the classified documents case against Trump but pursuing the case against his two co-defendants, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira. Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said the cases were "empty and lawless, and should never have been brought." "Over $100 Million Dollars of Taxpayer Dollars has been wasted in the Democrat Party's fight against their Political Opponent, ME," he said. "Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before." Trump is accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding -- the session of Congress called to certify Biden's win, which was violently attacked on January 6, 2021 by a mob of the then-president's supporters. Trump is also accused of seeking to disenfranchise US voters with his false claims that he won the 2020 election. The former and incoming president also faces two state cases -- in New York and Georgia. He was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election to stop her from revealing an alleged 2006 sexual encounter. Judge Juan Merchan has postponed sentencing while he considers a request from Trump's lawyers that the conviction be thrown out in light of the Supreme Court ruling in July that an ex-president has broad immunity from prosecution. In Georgia, Trump faces racketeering charges over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results in the southern state, but that case will likely be frozen while he is in office. cl/bgs