gstar28 legit
AP News Summary at 5:02 p.m. ESTI was quoted £700 for a Christmas display but did it myself for £12.50 – the baubles from The Range were a game changer
Qatar tribune dpa Washington US President-elect Donald Trump on Friday stepped into the ongoing dispute over the potential ban of the China-based video app TikTok in the United States, asking the Supreme Court to delay a law mandating the app’s sale. Trump argued that continued negotiations could save the platform while addressing national security concerns. The law, which took effect in April, requires TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest its ownership by January 19 or face removal from US app stores. The justification cites the risk that China could gain access to US data and exert political influence. While TikTok’s court challenges have so far failed, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. A hearing is scheduled for January 10 to consider whether the law violates the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. While US President Joe Biden has the authority to extend the deadline for TikTok by three months, this would require progress in ongoing sales negotiations. However, TikTok has so far refused to consider a change of ownership. Former and soon-to-be president Trump tried to ban TikTok during his first presidency by issuing an executive order in 2020 that would have had that effect, saying TikTok’s “risks are real.” That attempt was thwarted by a US federal judge, who said the then president did not have the authority to ban the app. Trump has recently reversed his position on the popular app. TikTok says it has 170 million users in the US. Copy 29/12/2024 10
Afifeh Saeidavi says she is paralysed by nightmares that she and her family will be persecuted by the Iranian government if forced to return. The mother-of-two is a social worker and collects blood as a phlebotomist in Sydney. Despite living in Australia for more than a decade, Labor's new migration laws have amplified her fears of being deported. Saedavi, her husband and their then-five-year-old son — who is now 17 — arrived in Australia by boat in 2012. After being detained on Christmas Island, they were transferred to the mainland the following year. They live in a constant state of uncertainty, forced to renew their bridging visas every six months. Now, Labor's new suite of migration laws has exacerbated their fear of being separated from Saidavi's youngest son, who was born in Australia. 'Families are going to be ripped apart': Labor's 'brutal' migration law trio, explained "He always says, 'It does not make sense to me. I am counted as an Australian, but you are not accepted here'," she told SBS News. "We are living in stress again," she said, explaining how scared her 11-year-old son is by the prospect of losing his family. She said her family, who were part of Iran's Arab minority, was persecuted by the government. "We ran away from pain, from lack of safety and insecure life to go through this. It's such an inhumane and unfair procedure." The 42-year-old fears Labor's new migration laws have the power to "destroy" lives and is urging the government to reverse the bills passed on Thursday. With the support of the Coalition, Labor passed three amendments to the Migration Act this week, which included strengthening the government's ability to remove non-citizens and pay third countries to take refugees. The amendments cast the future of tens of thousands of people living in Australia into doubt. When taking into account those on bridging visas, in immigration or community detention as well as those released due to the High Court's 2023 ruling that indefinite immigration detention was unlawful, as many as 80,000 people are at risk of removal. Without any guarantees around safety, Saedavi worries the country she and her family could be deported to would force them back into detention-like conditions. Credit: Supplied "I've always been told your country is not safe to go back, so if not, what is the reason to keep me in limbo ... to separate families ... I call it anti-human and anti-refugee," she added. Under the new legislation, the government will also be able to designate a "removal concern country", effectively banning all visa applicants from the country if it refuses to take back deportees. If a person on a bridging visa doesn't comply with the new removal direction, they could face a minimum of 12 months and up to five years in prison. The bills are the government's response to last year's High Court ruling , which found that people could not be detained indefinitely if there was no chance of being returned to their country of origin in the reasonably foreseeable future. 'Set up to fail': Number of visas cancelled on character grounds increases tenfold in last decade Anthony Albanese defends migration legislation The new migration laws have been described as "draconian" and "brutal" by independent MPs and human rights groups. Advocates warn the changes will have devastating consequences for refugees and those seeking protection in Australia. Asylum Seekers Centre CEO Frances Rush said the legislation was "cruelty codified" after it passed the Senate on Thursday. "This is a heartbreaking outcome for the people targeted by these bills, who will feel it profoundly," she said. 27/11/2024 07:04 Play "This is monumentally out of step with Labor’s election platform for a humane and compassionate approach to refugees." Prime Minister Anthony Albanese defended the three bills on Friday, stating his government had "inherited an immigration system not fit for purpose". "We are a government that wants an inclusive Australia that stands up for that, but we understand as well that our migration system needs to be robust and needs to be not manipulated," he told reporters. When pressed as to what countries will be listed on the removal direction and whether Australia will ensure it only deports non-citizens to signatories of the refugee convention, his answer was brief: "We'll implement our legislation". Source: AAP / Lukas Coch Last year, Labor fulfilled a key election promise to allow 19,000 refugees a permanent residency pathway . Saeidavi and her family are among thousands still stuck on temporary visas. She hopes the government will consider reversing the migration bills so her sons, who both love playing football, can remain in Australia stress-free with their friends and community. "Labor, you have always been a hope for us. Do not destroy this hope ... you are giving a lot of power to others to mess up and destroy our life." With additional reporting by Niv Sadrolodabaee in collaboration with SBS Persian.
Johns Hopkins, Salisbury football advance in NCAA DIII playoffs | ROUNDUP
FERGUS FALLS, Minn. — A jury convicted two men on Friday of charges related to human smuggling for their roles in an international operation that led to the deaths of a family of Indian migrants who froze while trying to cross the Canada-U.S. border during a 2022 blizzard. Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, an Indian national who prosecutors say went by the alias “Dirty Harry,” and Steve Shand, 50, an American from Florida, were part of a sophisticated illegal operation that has brought increasing numbers of Indians into the U.S., prosecutors said. They were each convicted on four counts related to human smuggling, including conspiracy to bring migrants into the country illegally. “This trial exposed the unthinkable cruelty of human smuggling and of those criminal organizations that value profit and greed over humanity,” Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andy Luger said. “To earn a few thousand dollars, these traffickers put men, women and children in extraordinary peril leading to the horrific and tragic deaths of an entire family. Because of this unimaginable greed, a father, a mother and two children froze to death in sub-zero temperatures on the Minnesota-Canadian border,” Luger added. The most serious counts carry maximum sentences of up to 20 years in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office told The Associated Press before the trial. But federal sentencing guidelines rely on complicated formulas. Luger said Friday that various factors will be considered in determining what sentences prosecutors will recommend. Federal prosecutors said 39-year-old Jagdish Patel; his wife, Vaishaliben, who was in her mid-30s; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and 3-year-old son, Dharmik, froze to death Jan. 19, 2022, while trying to cross the border into Minnesota in a scheme Patel and Shand organized. Patel is a common Indian surname, and the victims were not related to Harshkumar Patel. The couple were schoolteachers, local news reports said. The family was fairly well off by local standards, living in a well-kept, two-story house with a front patio and a wide veranda. Experts say illegal immigration from India is driven by everything from political repression to a dysfunctional American immigration system that can take years, if not decades, to navigate legally. Much is rooted in economics and how even low-wage jobs in the West can ignite hopes for a better life. Before the jury’s conviction on Friday, the federal trial in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, saw testimony from an alleged participant in the smuggling ring, a survivor of the treacherous journey across the northern border, border patrol agents and forensic experts. Defense attorneys were pitted against each other, with Shand’s team arguing that he was unwittingly roped into the scheme by Patel. Patel’s lawyers, The Canadian Press reported, said their client had been misidentified. They said “Dirty Hary,” the alleged nickname for Patel found in Shand’s phone, is a different person. Bank records and witness testimony from those who encountered Shand near the border didn’t tie him to the crime, they added. Prosecutors said Patel coordinated the operation while Shand was a driver. Shand was to pick up 11 Indian migrants on the Minnesota side of the border, prosecutors said. Only seven survived the foot crossing. Canadian authorities found two parents and their young children later that morning, dead from the cold. The trial included an inside account of how the international smuggling ring allegedly works and who it targets. Rajinder Singh, 51, testified that he made over $400,000 smuggling over 500 people through the same network that included Patel and Shand. Singh said most of the people he smuggled came from Gujarat state. He said the migrants would often pay smugglers about $100,000 to get them from India to the U.S., where they would work to pay off their debts at low-wage jobs in cities around the country. Singh said the smugglers would run their finances through “hawala,” an informal money transfer system that relies on trust. The pipeline of illegal immigration from India has long existed but has increased sharply along the U.S.-Canada border. The U.S. Border Patrol arrested more than 14,000 Indians on the Canadian border in the year ending Sept. 30, which amounted to 60% of all arrests along that border and more than 10 times the number two years ago. By 2022, the Pew Research Center estimates more than 725,000 Indians were living illegally in the U.S., behind only Mexicans and El Salvadorans.None