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WESLEY Mission hosted a long lunch last week for its teams from Coffs, Ballina, Grafton and Taree as a ‘thank you’ for their ongoing commitment and service to the area. Monday 3 April saw around 90 people gather at Jetty Beach House in Coffs Harbour where they were officially welcomed by Alex Webb from Bularri...

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A NEW research group at Southern Cross University (SCU) has won an Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) grant allowing it to fast forward its work in elite sports. The grant is worth $49,500 for projects to be undertaken by members of the Physical Activity, Sport and Exercise Research (PASER) team, which is led by SCU...

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MEN in the Coffs Harbour region have a new place to meet and talk with the launch of the national grassroots not-for-profit group, The Men’s Table. Working to overcome the stigma that “men don’t talk”, the Men’s Table creates a place for men to connect with other men, get stuff off their chest and talk...

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THE 5th annual Coffs Harbour leg of the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride will be held on Sunday 21 May as part of a worldwide event to help raise money and awareness of men’s health issues such as prostate cancer, mental health and men’s suicide. The organisers urge anyone interested to sign up and get their dapper...

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THE Gumbaynggirr Giingana Freedom School (GGFS) officially opened its new adventure playground last week. With support from the Paul Ramsay Foundation, Aboriginal Affairs and others, the playground is another learning space for the 50 or so students at the school. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your business. Message us....

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MUSICIANS, business and venue owners, event managers and all-round live music enthusiasts met at The Hub 2 at the C.ex Coffs International Stadium on Tuesday, April 4 to discuss what a thriving live music scene might look like on the Coffs Coast. The Coffs Coast Live Music Industry Forum was held by the City of...

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Republicans are twisting themselves into pretzels talking about abortion There are some who do have their rationale at the ready, however: A Nebraska Republican state senator argued Wednesday for a six-week abortion ban by claiming there are too many foreigners living in the state, invoking a racist conspiracy theory. Since Roe v. Wadewas overturned, abortion is allowed in Nebraska up to 21 weeks and six days of pregnancy. But on Wednesday, the Senate began debating a bill that would ban abortion after six weeks, before many people even know they are pregnant. Senator Steve Erdman decided that the best argument in favor of the ban was the “great replacement theory,” which the Southern Poverty Law Center defines as a “racist conspiracy narrative [that] falsely asserts there is an active, ongoing, and covert effort to replace white populations in current white-majority countries.” “Our state population has not grown except by those foreigners who have moved here or refugees who have been placed here,” Erdman told the chamber.

Orchestrated components are coming together to enable the US to recruit Australia in future wars of choice. Our media must begin to ask questions about the crude but successful ways the Australian people are being groomed to provide passive or enthusiastic consent. A version of the long awaited Defence Strategic Review for public consumption will Continue reading »

Multinational weapons companies could end up more deeply integrated into Australian military operations if Defence gets its way with legislative reforms. This comes on top of significant public unease about Australia’s ability to act independently as a result of AUKUS. Activity in the defence domain has reached peak overload. On top of AUKUS and the Continue reading »

Federal governments have been winding back administrative law reforms for 30 years, largely ignoring serious commitments (as signatory to Open Government Partnership (OGP) since 2015), to more open government. Secrecy has become the fallback in Australia with over 800 secrecy and non-disclosure laws. Commercial in confidence is overused, as is legal and professional privilege, national Continue reading »

The term ‘jobseeker’ needs to be dropped – it is Orwellian in nature and has no place in a civil society. It’s fairly standard practice for economists especially of the Left to decry the RBA’s obsession with the nonsense that is the Non-Accelerating Inflationary Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU) – the theoretical concept in macroeconomics that Continue reading »

There is a profound irony in the current Voice debate – could Dutton be one of the Yes campaigns significant vote winners? Dutton is deeply unpopular and deeply distrusted. Given this could Dutton’s opposition to the Voice actually persuade more people to vote Yes than vote No? The data suggests it’s more than possible. There Continue reading »

Fighting in Ukraine continues, sometimes fiercely, sometimes spasmodically. So do the unending appeals from Vladimir Zelensky for more and better weapons from the West. He is now to get from Britain anti-tank shells made from depleted uranium, which will increase radiation and chemical pollution where they are used. Depleted uranium (DU), is basically the isotope Continue reading »

Instead of focusing on building bridges and finding common ground for peace, the West has increasingly sought to shore up support among its allies and castigate or demonise its enemies. The West has an unenviable track record of repeatedly failing to use diplomacy to resolve geopolitical issues The charge for peace should be led by Continue reading »

A MintPress News investigation has found that dozens of former officials from the State Department, CIA and FBI are working in key positions at TikTok and affecting the content that over one billion users see.

The post TikTok: Chinese “Trojan Horse” Is Run by State Department Officials appeared first on MintPress News.

~ Today's Water Cooler ~

My sole new year resolution this year was to post once a week–but I’ve failed. I missed a week in February and this is the first post of April. I am so disappointed in me. But, oh well. I’m gonna try to get back on the wagon. FUN FACT! According to the Smirnoff advertising folk,Continue reading Smirnoff Year of the Brunch: Easter Brunch (1969) →

That’s what I call a very stable genius. Late night tantrum: I know this sounds like one of those Tom Friedman taxicab stories, but I swear it’s true. I was visiting a rural Walmart not too long ago and overheard a group standing around talking politics. And one of them said about Biden, “we’ve got to get rid of that idiot in the White House. All he ever does is whine and brag…” You think they don’t live in Bizarro World?

More than 50,000 pages of documents were recently made public after the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline lost a court case to keep them secret.

The post After Spying on Standing Rock, TigerSwan Shopped Anti-Protest “Counterinsurgency” to Other Oil Companies appeared first on The Intercept.

What in the world? I don’t know what to think about this story but it might be the weirdest tale I’ve heard in a long time. According to the Washington Post, the trove of classified documents that were recently discovered on the Discord social media platform were posted by a young man who works in a military facility for a bunch of teenagers for no discernible reason other than to show off for them. It’s truly bizarre. Here’s a brief rundown by CNN. The person behind a massive leak of classified US military documents worked on a military base and posted sensitive national security secrets in an online group of acquaintances, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. The Post reporting, which CNN could not independently verify, covers new ground in identifying the supposed leaker of highly classified documents – including some that paint a pessimistic US view of the war in Ukraine – and provides the first known details about who may be behind a major national security breach that has rocked Washington in recent days.

The Minnesota attorney general took over a murder case from Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, a fellow reformer. She accused him of playing politics.

The post Behind Keith Ellison’s Tough-on-Crime Turn appeared first on The Intercept.

The post Why Partisanship Is <span class="dewidow">Worse Now</span> appeared first on Roosevelt Institute.