niceph app download WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A little over 3,000 Pacific Gas and Electric Company customers in West Sacramento were without power Friday morning after a car crashed into a power pole. The crash happened on Jefferson Boulevard, the West Sacramento Police Department said. Both northbound and southbound lanes from South Linden Road to Marshall Road, and also at the intersection of Harmon Road. It was unclear what caused the crash or if anyone was injured. This comes as there is heavy rain falling across the region . The power was reported out at 10:28 a.m., according to the PG&E power outage map. No estimated time for when the power will fully be restored was given. Students at River City High School were dismissed early at 11:45 a.m. due to the power outage, the Washington Unified School District said. All boys' basketball games were also canceled for this evening. The West Sacramento Recreation Center was closed until further notice due to the power outage, the City of West Sacramento said. All activities, including lap swim, group exercise classes, and Parent's Night Out, are canceled. See our live traffic map for updates. This story was curated by Hearst's KCRA Alert Desk. Do you have photos or videos of this or another incident? Upload them to KCRA.com/upload , and be sure to include your name and additional details so we can give you credit online and on TV. If this story happened near you or someone you know, share this article with friends in your area using the KCRA mobile app so they know what is happening near them. The KCRA app is available for free in Apple’s App Store and on Google Play . See more coverage of top California stories here | Subscribe to our morning newsletter TRACK INTERACTIVE, DOPPLER RADAR Click here to see our interactive radar. DOWNLOAD OUR APP FOR THE LATEST Here is where you can download our app . Follow our KCRA weather team on social media Watch our forecasts on TV or online Here's where to find our latest video forecast . You can also watch a livestream of our latest newscast here . The banner on our website turns red when we're live. We're also streaming on the Very Local app for Roku, Apple TV or Amazon Fire TV. See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter5 of the biggest celebrity feuds of 2024, from Taylor Swift vs Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, and Nicki Minaj vs Megan Thee Stallion, to Drake vs Kendrick LamarThe San Joaquin Valley has reached a dead end in its fight to clean up a toxic contaminant from its drinking water, with residents now facing the prospect of footing the bill for a mess created by Shell and Dow products. Fresnoland reviewed internal Shell and Dow memos, court records, and state documents and interviewed key officials to uncover a decades-long environmental crisis enabled by both corporate greed and bureaucratic neglect. The documents show how the companies’ products contaminated nearly 20% of San Joaquin Valley drinking water with a substance the EPA rates as toxic as Agent Orange’s deadliest dioxin. The companies sold pesticides laced with 1,2,3-trichloropropane (TCP), a manufacturing waste from gunpowder and plastics production. Shell marketed the farming products as pure – a scheme that saved them millions in disposal costs. Over 25 years since discovering the contamination, state water officials have failed to even map how far and deep the cancer-causing chemical had spread into the Valley’s aquifers. This summer, the City of Fresno trumpeted what seemed like a victory over this toxic past: a record-breaking $233 million settlement with Shell and Dow over TCP-contaminated drinking water – the largest of its kind in U.S. history. Shell and Dow admitted no wrongdoing in the Fresno settlement. But scratch the surface, and a darker truth emerges — the money will vanish in less than a decade, covering filtration costs for roughly eight years, according to interviews with city of Fresno officials Georgeanne White and Brock Buche. Once the settlement funds run dry, Fresno residents will be left to shoulder any remaining pollution cleanup, at a cost of millions each year. The city’s hollow victory points to a fundamental failure of state oversight. A quarter century after discovering widespread TCP contamination in California’s agricultural heartland, state water officials still can’t answer a basic question: Just how far and deep has this cancer-causing chemical spread into the aquifers? Neither the Department of Water Resources nor the state water board has mapped the full extent of TCP contamination that threatens drinking water for more than 8 million people across California. “Data gaps do exist where TCP characterization remains unknown,” said Blair Robertson, a state spokesperson, about the chemical’s underground contamination plumes. This regulatory blind spot has forced local water agencies to wage a desperate legal battle against two of the world’s most powerful corporations, often with little more than educated guesses about the true scope of the contamination they’re fighting. “It’s unknown how long that will take,” Buche, the city’s public utilities director, said of a true cleanup effort. “I’d be optimistic that we can remove most of it out of the aquifer by [the time the settlement money runs out], but only time will tell.” Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer declined to comment on the settlement. Of Fresno’s seemingly impressive $233 million settlement, $46 million will be spent on legal fees, and another $144 million on startup costs, city officials estimated. Only $42 million remains to start filtering Fresno’s polluted aquifer. Often, the TCP lawsuits filed over the last two decades have resulted in inconsistent lump sum settlements which don’t result in completely cleaning up the water, according to the state water board spokesperson Blair Robertson. Bakersfield, for instance, has roughly the same number of contaminated wells as Fresno but reached a settlement with Dow for just one-third of the amount, $81 million, according to city of Bakersfield spokesperson Joe Conroy. “We are aware of the settlements with individual water systems and that those settlements are not sufficient to provide a long-term solution in most, if not all, instances,” said Blair Robertson, a SWB spokesperson, in a statement. More needs to be done to ensure that Shell and Dow – and not residents – pay for the costs of clean up, Robertson added, but was unclear about where they planned to go next. “We are investigating/researching if there is a way to hold manufacturers such as Shell and Dow responsible for impacts in California.” While residents face an uncertain future, one group has profited handsomely from the Valley’s water crisis: private attorneys. Law firms have collected up to 40% of each settlement, according to city officials across the Valley involved in lawsuits with Shell and Dow, amassing potentially hundreds of millions in fees from the billion-dollar battle. With inadequate settlements and no coordinated state strategy to force Shell and Dow to fund a permanent solution, San Joaquin Valley residents have been left to grapple with the toxic legacy of industrial farming, according to a recent CalMatters report — and the bill that comes with it. TCP had no agricultural use, according to internal company memos revealed in court records, but both companies withheld information about the presence of TCP from farmers who were using their products. Adam Romero, a University of Washington historian who has written a 2022 book from University of California about the Shell fumigant, said that the waste originated from a revolutionary manufacturing line Shell scientists invented in the 1930s. By the mid-1950s, the company possessed the ability to eliminate the carcinogenic impurity from their products, Romero added. However, Shell kept TCP in their products for decades. A 1983 Shell memo from court records reveals that 30% of the value of the farmer’s product stemmed from circumventing disposal costs of the toxic chemicals from other products. By the 1970s, Shell forecasted it would ship 40,000 tons of their TCP-containing fumigant worldwide. The San Joaquin Valley, California’s stronghold of industrial agriculture, relied heavily on Shell and Dow’s products and has emerged as the state’s epicenter of TCP contamination. “It’s horrible. It’s not something that has been exposed as it should have been,” said Felicia Marcus, former chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board and ex-EPA Western Chief. “It’s so cold.” Dow did not respond to an emailed request for comment. Shell did not answer a list of questions about information contained in company memos. A company spokesperson said one of Shell’s top motivations is being a good steward of the land. “Shell remains committed to delivering energy responsibly and safely, with the priority of protecting people and respecting the environment,” said Shell spokesperson Natalie Gunnell in an emailed statement. A permanent clean-up of TCP in local aquifers would take years of more intense efforts, EPA documents from Southern California show. The federal government, armed with powerful Superfund law, has yet to intervene in the San Joaquin Valley on the TCP issue. When Lockheed Martin poisoned Los Angeles groundwater with TCP in the 1980s, the EPA wielded its powerful Superfund authority, forcing the aerospace giant to purify the entire aquifer. Today, that water runs clean, according to data shared by the EPA. But 200 miles north, the EPA remains absent in the San Joaquin Valley. No one has ever asked the federal agency to investigate the Valley’s TCP crisis as a Superfund issue, according to EPA spokesperson Michael Brogan. That Shell and Dow had disposed of industrial waste by selling it to unsuspecting farmers left Keith Takata, a former EPA Superfund chief, stunned. “If somebody is saying that they had chemicals that they needed to dispose of, and the way they did it was put it in products? If true, it would be quite horrible,” Takata said. But before Shell’s product created a water crisis, the oil company had a revolution on their hands. In the 1940s, the San Joaquin Valley was a testing ground for new chemicals being made by Shell. During World War II, the US needed explosives and gunpowder. Shell had found a way to make it out of Kern County crude oil. In a state-of-the-art facility near San Francisco, Shell scientists discovered they could manufacture these products using a groundbreaking new chemical reaction dubbed the substitution reaction. It allowed highly reactive elements called halogens to bond with the carbon molecules in the crude oil, enabling Shell to create an unprecedented amount of new compounds from each drop of oil gushing from the derricks out of Kern. According to Adam Romero, the historian, the discovery would prove as momentous for the oil industry as the Trinity nuclear test was for the military. The discovery of the reaction split two of the world’s top oil companies into separate markets – Shell leveraged their reaction to turn its leftover oil and gas into plastic products, while Standard Oil went into household heating supplies, according to Romero. “It allows these short carbon chains to attach together and form new circular molecules. It’s such a foundational thing in organic chemistry,” Romero said of the impact of Shell’s discovery. “It opens up the petrochemical age.” It was a classic California story: from textbook to lab to global impact. Kern County crude, shipped via pipelines to cutting-edge facilities in Martinez, was cracked, processed, and refined using revolutionary techniques pioneered by Shell’s Emeryville R&D unit. In perfect synchrony, three California geographies transformed the state’s energy and infrastructure into a dizzying array of products – pesticides and pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and plastics, imitation leather and all-weather gear. But this petrochemical alchemy came with a spillover cost. Each turn of Shell’s profit-making engine, Romero documents in his recent book, was digging the company into an ever-deeper hole of junk – novel waste compounds with unknown dangers. Desperate for a quick fix, Shell stumbled upon an opportunity in 1939. Walter Carter was a scientist in Hawaii hell-bent on eradicating nematode parasites which were plaguing cash crops of all sorts of colonial companies. Bankrolled by agricultural giants Dole and Del Monte, Carter was experimenting with any poison he could procure – and asked Shell for some of theirs. Stationed in the fertile highland valley of Oahu, Carter’s unit had failed to find a solution to the nematodes throughout the 1930s, trying everything from coal tar to cyanide. When a shipment of 55-gallon drums arrived from Shell’s Emeryville lab, Carter found his miracle cure. Shell’s inky sludge, a witch’s brew of dichloropropenes (DD), annihilated the microscopic worms with unprecedented efficacy, he found. “Fumes shot out in a circle, killing every worm they reached,” Carter marveled in his notes about his first DD experiments. Follow-up experiments over the next two years were miraculous – plots of land treated with DD yielded almost triple the pineapples. For Shell, DD was a masterstroke of corporate synergy — transmuting the unwanted byproducts of one arm of its empire into a blockbuster commodity for another. Carter’s discovery not only rescued Hawaii’s pineapple industry, but created a powerful new weapon in the arsenal of industrial agriculture, Romero said, enabling struggling monocrop plantations to flourish once again across the globe. “It created the blank slate that industrial farmers were after,” Romero said. “It’s the first time you could kill everything underground and reset your fields every year.” California, with its WWII trifecta of war industries, oil extraction, and intensive farming, was poised to capitalize on this breakthrough. The sandy soils of the San Joaquin Valley, weakened by relentless cultivation and teeming with nematodes, proved the perfect testing ground for Shell’s new wonder drug, swiftly branded as DD. Before Carter’s experimental results even went public, according to Romero, Shell set up its first DD labs with UC Davis in a Modesto bean field. In the spring of 1943, scientists with Shell and UC Davis hand-injected DD for the first time in the mainland US. Initial photos taken by the scientists proved that, indeed, Shell’s new chemical was performing miracles. Before and after photos of infected bean rootstocks showed that Shell’s product had scrubbed off everything but the plant’s nutrient-absorbing dermal tissues. In especially diseased soils near Ventura, one sweet potato farmer who used DD reported that his crop yield increased by more than 1000%, according to Romero. Soon, DD spread across California. The first sign of trouble emerged a few years later. In 1952, a grower out of Rhodesia, South Africa wrote that his tobacco crop was stinky after injecting DD. He found that a chemical known as TCP was also in the product, an “impurity,” he described. At first, Shell likely lacked the technology to remove TCP from its pesticides, Romero said. But by the early 1950s, the company had the ability to strip out the carcinogenic chemical. “In the early days, they couldn’t separate them all very well,” he said. “But by the mid-1950s, Shell could remove TCP on a pretty good basis.” In a 1949 internal communication, Shell said it preferred “not to list all the ingredients” in order to “retain the definite sales advantage of a 100 percent active ingredient claim,” according to the the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a Washington DC-based non-profit. Even with the relatively weak federal pesticide regulations at the time, there were federal laws against false claims on pesticide labels. By 1974, a Dow scientist predicted EPA would require removing TCP, calling it “garbage” with no agricultural use. Keeping TCP in its fumigants was a financial boon for Shell. In a 1983 memo, the company acknowledged the practice allowed it to sidestep the expense of properly disposing of the toxic waste from other products. Despite the risks, the chemical companies kept TCP in their fumigant products for decades. Shell proposed in the 1970s to start a research program to study the health effects of TCP, according to a memo. They never followed up, said Todd Robins, an attorney who has litigated Shell and Dow several times, in a KVPR interview this August. DD and Telone, Dow Chemical’s competitor product, ended up becoming the second-most used pesticide in California. It took California regulators decades to catch on that something was amiss. In 1980, nearly 40 years after contaminated DD was being applied across California, the EPA started investigating a former Lockheed Martin factory. In the shadow of deindustrialized Los Angeles, a 13-square-mile plume of groundwater beneath the company’s abandoned aerospace plant was found to be laced with industrial chemicals, including TCP. An investigation revealed that during the wartime boom, Lockheed had, like Shell, engineered itself into a waste disposal problem. The aerospace company had stored their industrial wastes in underground storage tanks which leaked chemicals, including TCP. Other toxic chemicals the company injected directly into the aquifer, a court-appointed water expert later found. Fifteen percent of Los Angeles’ and Burbank’s water supply was impacted. Six years later, the EPA established the area as a Superfund site in 1986, requiring Lockheed to build a mammoth clean-up facility and meet specific water quality goals. The program was so successful, water from the aquifer near North Hollywood is clean to drink today, according to EPA data. In the wake of the Lockheed case, state officials grew alarmed about TCP. Their testing in the 1990s and 2000s revealed a far more extensive problem, concentrated in the San Joaquin Valley. But no cavalry arrived for the San Joaquin Valley like in Hollywood. Since discovering the problem over 25 years ago, state and federal regulators never mapped the full extent of the San Joaquin Valley’s TCP plumes, according to Blair Robertson at state water board, critical to determining the true cleanup costs. This dearth of data undercut efforts by over 100 Valley communities to hold Shell and Dow accountable in court. Without a complete picture of the contamination, the communities couldn’t quantify the funds needed to fully decontaminate their aquifers. To initiate a full plume study across the state, said state spokesperson Robertson, the state water board would need to direct DWR to investigate the issue. More risks loom. Ambitious groundwater recharge projects, which will flood vast swaths of land with surface water, could inadvertently spread the TCP contamination, since the shape and extent of these underground toxic plumes remain unmapped. The current evaluation of these recharge projects only considers “known groundwater contamination plumes,” DWR said. But one agency has been starkly absent – the most powerful actor in all of this: the EPA. While companies like Lockheed Martin have faced accountability for improperly disposing of industrial chemicals in Los Angeles, Shell and Dow have faced fewer consequences for products that contaminated a rural region. It’s a familiar pattern, data shows. California’s Superfund sites are concentrated in populous coastal regions. Nearly a third are in Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties alone. Felicia Marcus, the former EPA Western Chief under the Clinton administration, believes the Valley’s TCP crisis could qualify for Superfund intervention. “Why would it be protected?” Marcus said about the chemical. According to Brogan, the EPA spokesperson, the federal agency only shields pesticide makers from Superfund liability for “lawful application of registered pesticides in ways that are consistent with the pesticide’s purpose.” In the case of TCP, the chemical was not a registered pesticide and had no agricultural use. Marcus believes that if the San Joaquin Valley can secure Superfund designation, it would gain access to powerful tools not available at the state level, such as the ability to collect triple the amount of damages from polluters. “The government doesn’t have to prove as much. They have to prove that you touched it, but they don’t have to be tied up in a massive evidentiary thing,” she said. “In this case, it’s pretty clear where the TCP contamination came from.” This story was originally published by Fresnoland, a nonprofit news A Hanford father and son are taking their combined 30-plus The Nov. 29 print edition of The Business Journal included The Nov. 29 print edition of The Business Journal included

World leaders discussed the latest developments taking place in the Middle East and highlighted their implications at a session on the opening day of Doha Forum 2024 Saturday. The panellists at the session on *Conflict Resolution in a New Era included Qatar's Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs HE Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Norway's Minister of Foreign Affairs Espen Barth Eide, and India's Minister of External Affairs Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. HE Sheikh Mohammed spoke on the current state of negotiations between Israel and Palestine, saying that it has been going through ups and downs since the start of the war. “We have seen on November 23 (2023), the deal was concluded to release the first batch of hostages in exchange of 250 Palestinian prisoners,” he said. “And since that time, we have been back and forth within the same process, within the same framework that we are discussing today.” HE Sheikh Mohammed noted that the situation in Syria is evolving rapidly. “Our worry is that this will bring back the old cycles of internal violence, the civil war, and this is really threatening the integrity, the territorial integrity of Syria,” he stated. “It can damage and destroy what is left if there is no sense of urgency to start putting a political framework and trying to address the issue from a political perspective to find a sustainable solution.” Eide stressed that the establishment of the integrated Palestinian statehood is the only way to ensure peace and coexistence in the Middle East. “We need a two-state solution,” the Norwegian minister said. “We want an integrated Palestine, compromising the West Bank and Gaza, the relevant parts of Jerusalem, you know, as was envisaged in the Oslo Accords.” “And the drama, the horror is so deep now that we cannot go back to 6th of October last year,” Eide said, referring to the events of October 7, 2023. He also noted that the world would not be able to solve the problems in the Middle East region without solving the Palestinian question. Dr Jaishankar stated that what is happening in the Middle East region affects all countries, including India. “We have about 500,000 Indians who live in Mediterranean countries,” he said. “We have a trade of about $80bn with the Mediterranean,” Dr Jaishankar continued. “Looking at the Gulf, we have 10mn Indians here and maybe about $180bn of trade.” “I think what's happening in Syria, what's happening in the larger region, what's happening in Gaza and Lebanon, in Iran, the combination of all of this, there is a larger regional instability which is actually growing month on month,” he added. “It is impacting us. As a country on the other side of Asia, we are feeling the impact of this,” the minister said. “I mean, we are feeling it in shipping costs, we are feeling in trade disruptions.” “So today instability anywhere actually is a source of concern. There is no region you can say that is far away,” he added. The session was moderated by CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour. Related Story Qatar celebrates World Soil Day QU launches 4th World Congress on Engineering and TechnologyWith NHAI officials present, Sharma reviews road safety

Jaguars Make Four Roster MovesOTTAWA — Former foreign minister Lawrence Cannon says he denied an emergency passport to Abousfian Abdelrazik in 2009 because he considered the Montreal man a possible threat to national security. Cannon told a Federal Court hearing Tuesday he did not want Abdelrazik to return to Canada from Sudan and "put any Canadians in jeopardy." The Sudanese-born Abdelrazik settled in Montreal as a refugee and became a Canadian citizen in 1995. During a 2003 visit to his native country to see his ailing mother, he was arrested, imprisoned and questioned about suspected extremist connections. Abdelrazik, who denies involvement in terrorism, says he was tortured by Sudanese authorities during two periods of detention. He is suing the Canadian government, claiming officials arranged for his arbitrary imprisonment, encouraged his detention by Sudanese authorities and obstructed his repatriation to Canada for several years. The suit also names Cannon, Conservative foreign affairs minister from October 2008 to May 2011. Federal lawyers argue Abdelrazik is an author of his own troubles, saying Canada did not urge Sudan to keep him in detention or mistreat him, or create a risk that these things might happen. Abdelrazik's second release from Sudanese custody came in July 2006. However, his inclusion on a United Nations security watch list complicated his efforts to return to Canada. At various times he was also on U.S. and Canadian no-fly lists. In response to a query from Canada's foreign ministry, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP said in November 2007 that neither agency had current and substantive information to support Abdelrazik's continued inclusion on the UN list. But Abdelrazik remained stuck in Sudan. In April 2008, he sought safe haven at the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum. He lived there in makeshift conditions for over a year. Canadian officials stated on several occasions the federal government would issue him an emergency passport if he were able to arrange air passage to Canada. In March 2009, Abdelrazik obtained a ticket to Canada for the following month. A March 12, 2009, email message filed in court indicates Cannon's office was questioning the authority to issue an emergency passport to Abdelrazik while he was on the UN list. Cannon seemed to know little about the inquiry, suggesting one of his staff was seeking more information, "as much as we were all looking for information." In early April 2009, Cannon refused Abdelrazik an emergency travel document under a section of the Canadian Passport Order that said he could refuse or revoke a passport if "such action is necessary for the national security of Canada or another country." Cannon told the court Tuesday that responsibility for national security is one of the important roles a minister plays. "I took that responsibility very seriously," Cannon said. "I did not want to put any Canadians in jeopardy or have Mr. Abdelrazik come back to Canada and pose a threat to the security and livelihood of a number of Canadians." Paul Champ, a lawyer for Abdelrazik, said during cross-examination of Cannon that Passport Canada had been quite ready to issue the document before the minister's decision. "I'm suggesting someone from your office pumped the brakes and said, 'Wait, do not issue that, because Mr. Cannon wants to review it. I'm suggesting to you, that's what happened." "I can't confirm what you're suggesting," Cannon replied. "I don't know." Abdelrazik has told the court the passport refusal was like "a mountain falling down on my head," causing great distress. He returned to Canada in late June 2009 after a judge ruled Ottawa violated his Charter right to enter Canada in denying him a temporary travel document. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 10, 2024. Jim Bronskill, The Canadian PressSpokane City Council pulls back proposed rules, protects right to dissent

Dow ends at fresh record as oil prices pull back on ceasefire hopes

East Tenn. State University art exhibit featuring Trump alongside swastikas, Ku Klux Klan hoods sparks outrage

Stock market update: Nifty Bank index 0.41% in a weak market

Inflation is predicted to average 2.5% this year and 2.6% next year, according to forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility. The British Medical Association said the Government showed a “poor grasp” of unresolved issues from two years of industrial action, and the Royal College of Nursing called the pay recommendation “deeply offensive”. The National Education Union’s chief said teachers were “putting the Government on notice” that the proposed increase “won’t do”. The pay recommendations came after Chancellor Rachel Reeves called for every Government department to cut costs by 5%, as she started work on a sweeping multi-year spending review to be published in 2025. Independent pay review bodies will consider the proposals for pay rises for teachers, NHS workers and senior civil servants. The Department of Health said it viewed 2.8% as a “reasonable amount” to set aside, in its recommendations to the NHS Pay Review Body and the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration Board remit groups. A 2.8% pay rise for teachers in 2025/26 would “maintain the competitiveness of teachers’ pay despite the challenging financial backdrop the Government is facing”, the Department for Education said. The Cabinet Office also suggested pay increases for senior civil servants should be kept to no more than 2.8%. Paul Johnson, director of the influential economics think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said it was “not a bad ballpark figure” and feels “just about affordable” given the Government’s public spending plans. The downside, he said, is that public sector workers have lost out since 2010 and unions will be upset that this is not making up the gap, he told Sky News’ Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge. “But given the constraints facing the Chancellor I think it’s pretty hard to argue for more for public sector pay when public sector services ... are under real strain,” he said. Unions expressed their disappointment in the recommendations, with some hinting they could be willing to launch industrial action. The Royal College of Nursing general secretary and chief executive called for “open direct talks now” to avoid “further escalation to disputes and ballots”. Professor Nicola Ranger said: “The Government has today told nursing staff they are worth as little as £2 extra a day, less than the price of a coffee. “Nursing is in crisis – there are fewer joining and too many experienced professionals leaving. This is deeply offensive to nursing staff, detrimental to their patients and contradictory to hopes of rebuilding the NHS. “The public understands the value of nursing and they know that meaningful reform of the NHS requires addressing the crisis in nursing. “We pulled out of the Pay Review Body process, alongside other unions, because it is not the route to address the current crisis. “That has been demonstrated today. “Fair pay must be matched by structural reform. Let’s open direct talks now and avoid further escalation to disputes and ballots – I have said that directly to government today.” Professor Philip Banfield, chairman of the British Medical Association’s council, urged the sector’s pay review body to “show it is now truly independent”. “For this Government to give evidence to the doctors’ and dentists’ pay review body (DDRB) believing a 2.8% pay rise is enough, indicates a poor grasp of the unresolved issues from two years of industrial action,” he said. He said the proposal is far below the current rate of inflation and that the Government was “under no illusion” when doctors accepted pay offers in the summer that there was a “very real risk of further industrial action” if “pay erosion” was not addressed in future pay rounds. “This sub-inflationary suggestion from the current Government serves as a test to the DDRB. “The BMA expects it to take this opportunity to show it is now truly independent, to take an objective view of the evidence it receives from all parties, not just the Government, and to make an offer that reflects the value of doctors’ skills and expertise in a global market, and that moves them visibly further along the path to full pay restoration.” The NEU’s general secretary, Daniel Kebede, said teachers’ pay had been cut by more than one-fifth in real terms since 2010. “Along with sky-high workload, the pay cuts have resulted in a devastating recruitment and retention crisis. Teacher shortages across the school system hit pupils and parents too. “A 2.8% increase is likely to be below inflation and behind wage increases in the wider economy. This will only deepen the crisis in education.” In a hint that there could be a return to industrial action he added: “NEU members fought to win the pay increases of 2023 and 2024. “We are putting the Government on notice. Our members care deeply about education and feel the depth of the crisis. This won’t do.” The offer for teachers is the “exact opposite of fixing the foundations” and will result in bigger class sizes and more cuts to the curriculum, Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “The inadequacy of the proposed pay award is compounded by the Government’s intention that schools should foot the bill out of their existing allocations. “Given that per-pupil funding will increase on average by less than 1% next year, and the Government’s proposal is for an unfunded 2.8% pay award, it is obvious that this is in fact an announcement of further school cuts.” Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said: This recommendation falls far short of what is needed to restore the competitiveness of the teaching profession, to enable it to retain experienced professionals and attract new talent. Unison head of health Helga Pile said: “The Government has inherited a financial mess from its predecessors, but this is not what NHS workers wanted to hear. “Staff are crucial in turning around the fortunes of the NHS. Improving performance is a key Government pledge, but the pay rise proposed is barely above the cost of living.”

This Christmas, buy green gifts that don't cost the earthEnvironment Don't miss out on the headlines from Environment. Followed categories will be added to My News. Most of Canberra’s waterways have been shut for swimming until further notice as heavy rainfall has created poor water quality, driven by elevated bacteria levels. Water testing completed by the ACT Parks and Conservation Service found that three rivers, including Murrumbidgee, Cotter and Paddy’s River have all been closed for primary contact. Other affected areas include Casuarina Sands, Swap Creek, Pine Island, Uriarra East and West, Kambah Pool, Point Hut Crossing, Tharwa Bridge, Murrays Corner and Cotter Campground. Four of Lake Burley’s 10 locations have also been closed for primary contact due to increased bacteria levels, including the East and West Basins, Yarralumla Beach and Weston Park East. \Most of Canberra's waterways have been shut for swimming as heavy rainfall has created poor water quality, driven by elevated bacteria levels. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman In a statement shared by the ACT Parks and Conservation Service online, the week’s heavy rainfall created poor water quality in the affected areas, resulting in elevated bacteria levels that could cause harm to the human body. Bacteria levels tend to increase in water after heavy rainfall, due to a quantity of material collecting in the storm water pipes, grazing land and upstream bodies of water. “The good news is that activities like boating, kayaking, fishing, walking, and picnicking are unaffected,” an online statement read. Between September and April each year, samples are taken and tested for the overall water quality and bacteria like Intestinal Enterococci, indicating the presence of faecal pollution. The poor water quality is due to heavy rainfall, which develops the perfect breeding ground for bacteria. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman It is not always easy to check if the water is clean enough to swim in without regular testing during warmer months, when the swimming locations become more popular. It means even taking a quick dip in the water could lead to health problems, ACT Parks and Conservation senior director Nick Daines told the ABC. “Elevated bacteria can cause irritation, gastrointestinal system, as well as an upset stomach,” he said. Those who have been in contact with the water are advised to wash their skin thoroughly, especially their hands before eating or drinking. Tests for blue-green algae are completed regularly throughout the year, which is more common in urban waterways and caused by hot water sitting still. Blue-green algae is just as dangerous; contact with affected water could lead to skin irritation, mild breathing problems and hayfever-like symptoms. If ingested, the toxins could cause gastrointestinal symptoms like vomiting, diarrhoea, headaches and fever. There have been no reported outbreaks in the ACT. The lakes have been shut for swimming, though boating and kayaking is allowed. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman Swimming in the bacteria-laden waterways can lead to health complications. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman National Capital Authority acting director of the lake and dam, David Wright, said the heavy rainfall caused a spike of nutrients in the water and created a perfect breeding ground for bacteria, “probably due to the rain in recent weeks and washing in bacteria from the catchment”. A recent increase in birdlife may also be contributing to the issue, he said. “More recently, we’ve observed a lot of seagulls at the beach, and we think that they’re probably contributing to the bacteria levels around the swimming areas,” Mr Wright said. It’s not just the bacteria that can cause issues for those hoping to take a dip. Amid the heavy rainfall, debris such as submerged objects and fast-flowing water can be particularly hazardous for those swimming in the water. Mr Daines warned people hoping to take a plunge during the summer to be aware of the risks, and never enter the water alone. “(The) most common causes of drowning in Australia are from inland waterways, like rivers and dams,” he said. “If you’re not a strong swimmer, it’s probably not the best place to be going for a swim, and maybe stick to areas that have lifeguards, like pools.” Originally published as Chilling warning for residents in Canberra swimming spots More related stories Environment ‘Unsettling’ thunderstorms loom for millions Millions of Australians are being urged to keep an eye out for changing weather conditions, as severe thunderstorms are likely to develop. Read more Animals Why cicadas are so much louder this year Summer means a lot of things: hot weather, long nights and loud cicadas. And those noisy insects seem to be turning up the decibels this year. Read moreNBA's Christmas Day ratings skyrocket, even going up against NFL games

abrdn Emerging Markets Equity Income Fund, Inc. (AEF) Announces Results Of Strategic Review Including: Changes To The Fund’s Name And Investment Strategy, A 20% Tender Offer And Renewed Performance-based Conditional Tender Offer Policy, And An Increase To Managed Distribution PolicyGill St. Bernard’s is the Non-Public B champion for the sixth-straight time. The Knights defeated Moorestown Friends 8-0 in the championship game on Thursday night at Franklin High School to win their ninth-overall state title. Dan Scali scored twice for Gill St. Bernard’s, while JeanCarlo Sanchez, Max Voigt, Jackson Murray, Julio Rzemieniewski and Felipe Zumbado also scored. Moorestown Friends (12-8-1) ends its season as Burlington County Scholastic League Patriot Division champions and South, Non-Public B champs. RECOMMENDED • nj .com Strong second half propels No. 3 Scotch Plains-Fanwood to 1st sectional title since 2016 Nov. 15, 2024, 9:04 p.m. Rahway tops South Plainfield to win first North 2, Group 3 title since 2019 Nov. 15, 2024, 5:42 p.m. Lauren Knego may be reached at lknego@njadvancemedia.com . Follow her at @laurenknego The N.J. High School Sports newsletter now appears in mailboxes 5 days a week. Sign up now! Follow us on social: Facebook | Instagram | X (formerly Twitter )

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