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ZONTA Club of Coffs Harbour is calling for applications to its Young Women in Public Affairs (YWPA) award program. The goal of the program is to encourage young women to participate in public affairs by recognising a young woman’s commitment to the volunteer sector, volunteer leadership achievements and dedication to the empowerment of members of...

The post Coffs’ Zonta Club Young Women in Public Affairs Award applications closing soon appeared first on News Of The Area.

POLICE have released CCTV images of two men as they appeal for public information after an armed robbery in Coffs Harbour in April. Detectives have been told about 12am on Wednesday 12 April 2023, two men entered a business on Harbour Drive, Coffs Harbour, before they threatened an employee with a knife and hammer and...

The post Police launch public appeal following Coffs Harbour robbery appeared first on News Of The Area.

Vlad’s buddy has this to say Yeah. There are too many moving parts to properly analyze the Russia situation at the moment. But let’s just say that Prigozhin is a monster and so in Putin and the only thing we can root for is destabilization of the Moscow regime without too much destabilization and some kind of resolution that results in withdrawal from Ukraine (not on the Prigozhin plan, BTW) and Russia gives peace a chance. I will just put this up for now in case you forgot this part of Prigozhin story: Kremlin-connected entrepreneur Yevgeny Prigozhin admitted Monday that he had interfered in U.S. elections and would continue to do so — confirming for the first time the accusations that he has rejected for years. “Gentlemen, we have interfered, are interfering and will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do,” Prigozhin boasted in remarks posted on social media. The statement, from the press service of his catering company that earned him the nickname “Putin’s chef,” came on the eve of the U.S. midterm elections.

And it shows Mediaite: Former President Donald Trump told attendees at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday night that he rejected some of the biggest law firms and lawyers in the country because he doesn’t “need any help.” Earlier this month, two of the former president’s top lawyers resigned from his defense team after the DOJ announced it would charge Trump with 37 counts related to his handling of classified material at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Jim Trusty and John Rowley, who previously led Trump’s legal team in Washington, D.C., indicated they would no longer represent him in the Jack Smith probe and his $475 million defamation suit against CNN. However, despite difficulties retaining new legal representation, Trump bragged to a group of supporters at a fundraiser at Bedminster that some of the “biggest” firms and lawyers have called him asking to represent him in the upcoming federal trial. “I tell all these people, they all come in — they want to help,” Trump said speaking about the upcoming 2024 election.

Also, Apple is called out for union busting, Arkansas makes landmark healthcare progress, New York tenants get climate protections, and more.

They keep Hitler quotes handy why, exactly? Jezebel: An Indiana chapter of the rightwing Moms For Liberty organization apologized on Thursday for printing a quotation from Adolf Hitler—yes, the genocidal leader of Nazi Germany—in its newsletter. “We condemn Adolf Hitler’s actions and his dark place in human history. We should not have quoted him in our newsletter and we express our deepest apology,” chapter chair Paige Miller said in a truly dystopian statement posted to Facebook. In the June newsletter for the Hamilton County, Indiana, chapter of Moms for Liberty, Hitler’s short quote from a Nazi rally in 1935 is printed the front page of the issue. “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future” (emphasis theirs). They hope to (informally, anyway) return a wannabe dictator to the White House and stomp out the LGBTQ community, one presumes, when they are not banning books or hanging out with terrorist groups like the Proud Boys. Don’t you still want to know why they keep Hitler quotes handy?

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Well, it’s on. This is why you don’t use mercenaries or trust scum like Prigozhin.

Remember that Prigozhin is to the right of Putin, which is where the threat was always going to come from. If he does take over, it is unlikely to lead to an end to the Ukraine war (unless there’s a bloody civil war), it means gloves off.

The issue here is just how much of the Russian army will side with Putin. If it’s anything substantial, he wins. If not,  he’s done. This is why Prigozhin emphasized not enough weapons, etc… it was a stab in the back narrative: “Putin won’t let us win the war.”

Putin played around with the war, unwilling to go all in and used Wagner as a prison to frontlines pipeline. That was a mistake.

We’ll see if it’s a fatal one. This is entirely a matter of morale—what the military will do.

Revisiting Series 3 of the modern era of Doctor Who, it's pretty clear that Freema Agyemans' Martha Jones is the most underrated companion.

In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: Arrow/Stephen Amell, "Daryl Dixon," Always Sunny, SDCC 2023, Star Trek: Prodigy, Cobra Kai/Elon Musk & more!

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Unsatisfied with humiliating patients, the anti-abortion right is escalating a time-tested tactic: Make ’em grovel.

The post A Year After Dobbs, the Anti-Abortion Right Is Grilling Doctors on Tattoos, Tweets, and Too-Strong Beliefs appeared first on The Intercept.

Source - Patreon

Sand kittens! The North Carolina Zoo is excited to announce yet another recent birth: three sand cat kittens (sexes unknown at this time) were born on May 11. Small enough to fit into the palm of your hand, the kittens were born to first-time mother Sahara, 3, and father Cosmo, 9. It marks the third birth at the Zoo in less than two weeks. On May 20, a giraffe calf (male) was born, and a chimpanzee infant (male) was born on May 21. This marks the first litter for the sand cat pair. Cosmo previously fathered daughter Layla, now living at the Greensboro Science Center. The Zoo plans to offer a public naming poll for the kittens. Details will be announced soon on the Zoo’s social media channels and website. The mom and triplets are doing well. The trio are beginning to explore their surroundings in the Desert Habitat. Lucky guests may be able to catch a glimpse of them in the coming days. Though they appear adorable with big ears, eyes, and petite frame, looks can be deceiving. Zookeepers are quick to tell you they are wild, ferocious animals that should never be kept as pets. These small and mighty hunters kill venomous snakes in the desert.

Source - Patreon

I don’t know what to make of this but it’s fascinating: Russia did not face an imminent security threat to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary outfit, said in a bombshell video posted on social media Friday. “The Armed Forces of Ukraine were not going to attack Russia with the NATO bloc,” Prigozhin explained in the half-hour tirade released by his press service. “The Russian Defense Ministry is deceiving the public and the president,” he added. Prigozhin’s comments were at odds with the casus belli given by President Vladimir Putin when he ordered troops into Ukraine last February, although the private army chief avoided personally attacking the Russian leader.

Physicist Alan Lightman on evolution and atheism, creativity and spirituality.

The post Why Materialists Don’t Have to Be Atheists appeared first on Nautilus.

This would be funny if it didn’t mean that Marge Greene could end up being a “mainstream” Republican politician once the smoke has cleared: Tensions inside the conservative House Freedom Caucus have reached the point that some members are floating the idea of purging colleagues from the group. At least two hardliners have discussed — and proposed to Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry (R-Pa.) — trying to boot members who no longer meet the group’s standards, according to three Republicans with knowledge of the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity. The lawmakers declined to name who’s behind the ouster calls, underscoring the sensitivity of the situation. While the members suggesting a purge did not specify the people they want to remove, they are signaling that one target of any ejection push is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Some in the Freedom Caucus have focused on Greene, who’s become a close ally of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, to illustrate their fears that certain group members are too aligned with GOP leaders and too outwardly critical of the group when it splits on certain issues.

Miami: Just saying. This is a national problem in cities big and small, red states and blue states. It’s a terrible thing and these ghouls like DeSantis trying to make it into a “woke” issue are lying assholes.

Call it Carr’s law. I’m pretty confident it withstands any testing. It’s simple: find someone talking up war with China and, if they were around 20 years ago, you find they were a supporter of the Iraq invasion. Few learn from error. On the other hand, stupidity is a constant in human affairs. Against it, Continue reading »

While much of humanity was glued to the unfolding drama over one tiny submarine, the Earth we all inhabit is slowly, steadily and implacably imploding around us. Ocean temperatures are raging off the scale, icecaps are melting and seas rising, forests are ablaze across continents, ‘heat bombs’ in heavily populated regions are pushing them into Continue reading »

In an opinion piece published in The Weekend Australian (10 June 2023), Paul Monk offers his response to critics of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine agreement. A central focus of his critique is this open letter signed by more than 100 academics. As two of the principal co-authors of the letter, we requested a right of Continue reading »

Australia is the only democratic country in the world without a charter of human rights in either legislation or the Constitution. On 1 July the deadline for submissions will close on the federal government’s current Inquiry into Australia’s Human Rights Framework. In this Inquiry the government is seeking comments on whether the Human Rights Framework Continue reading »

This is a story of five decades, from 1973 to 2023. Diplomatic relations between Australia and the then North Vietnam were established on 26 February, 1973. It has history. Early this year marked its fiftieth anniversary, otherwise mostly ignored. The Commonwealth of Australia had then created political ties with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (which Continue reading »