Author: Damon Hunter

The death toll from wildfires on Hawaii’s Maui has risen to 80 as search teams combed through the smouldering ruins of Lahaina town, and officials sought to determine how the inferno spread so rapidly through the historic resort area with little warning. Hawaii’s attorney general said on Friday that she was opening a probe into how authorities responded to devastating wildfires that have left at least 80 people dead and 1,418 people at emergency evacuation shelters, according to the latest figures. “The Department of the Attorney General will be conducting a comprehensive review of critical decision-making and standing policies leading up to, during, and…

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Florida’s governor has moved to expand a controversial law barring public schools from teaching about sexual education and gender identity. Governor Ron DeSantis is seeking to extend it to all grades, through to the final year of high school. Teachers who violate the law – denounced by critics as “Don’t Say Gay” – face being suspended or losing their teaching licences. The Board of Education is expected to vote on the proposed rule next month. It was put forth by the state Department of Education and will not need legislative approval to take effect, according to local media reports. Both…

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As President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev continues his campaign to root out the crony capitalism that flourished during his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev’s long rule, his investigators have turned their sights on a bank linked to the Nazarbayev family. Prosecutors have launched a court case to annul a deal under which control of First Heartland Jusan Bank, Kazakhstan’s sixth-largest by assets, passed into a foreign jurisdiction shortly after receiving a multi-billion-dollar government bailout. A banking sector probe had “revealed an untransparent scheme to change Jusan group’s ownership structure,” the Prosecutor-General’s Office said on February 16. “The implementation of this scheme led to the…

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. will send Ukraine nearly $3 billion in military aid, in a massive new package that will for the first time include several dozen Bradley fighting vehicles, U.S. officials said Thursday, in the Biden administration’s latest step to send increasingly lethal and powerful weapons to help Ukraine beat back Russian forces. European allies also stepped up their weapons commitments. Germany announced it will provide armored personnel carriers and a Patriot missile battery to Ukraine, and France said it will soon hold talks to arrange for the delivery of armored combat vehicles. All of the announcements, however,…

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