The impending departure of the star player has sent shockwaves through the footballing world, with fans and pundits alike speculating on the implications for Manchester United's squad. The player in question has been a key figure for the team in recent seasons, contributing significantly to their success on the pitch.The public response to the news of the arrests has been mixed, with some expressing shock and disbelief at the involvement of certain individuals, while others express relief that steps are being taken to address the wrongdoing that has come to light. The case serves as a reminder of the importance of transparency, accountability, and the rule of law in upholding justice and maintaining public trust.President-elect Donald Trump will return to power next year with a raft of technological tools at his disposal that would help deliver his campaign promise of cracking down on immigration — among them, surveillance and artificial intelligence technology that the Biden administration already uses to help make crucial decisions in tracking, detaining and ultimately deporting immigrants lacking permanent legal status. While immigration officials have used the tech for years, an October letter from the Department of Homeland Security obtained exclusively by The Associated Press details how those tools — some of them powered by AI — help make life-altering decisions for immigrants, including whether they should be detained or surveilled. One algorithm, for example, ranks immigrants with a “Hurricane Score,” ranging from 1-5, to assess whether someone will “abscond” from the agency's supervision. The letter, sent by DHS Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer Eric Hysen to the immigrant rights group Just Futures Law, revealed that the score calculates the potential risk that an immigrant — with a pending case — will fail to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. The algorithm relies on several factors, he said, including an immigrant’s number of violations and length of time in the program, and whether the person has a travel document. Hysen wrote that ICE officers consider the score, among other information, when making decisions about an immigrant’s case. “The Hurricane Score does not make decisions on detention, deportation, or surveillance; instead, it is used to inform human decision-making,” Hysen wrote. Also included in the government’s tool kit is a mobile app called SmartLINK that uses facial matching and can track an immigrant’s specific location. Nearly 200,000 people without legal status who are in removal proceedings are enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention program, under which certain immigrants can live in the U.S. while their immigration cases are pending. In exchange, SmartLINK and GPS trackers used by ICE rigorously surveil them and their movements. The phone application draws on facial matching technology and geolocation data, which has been used before to find and arrest those using the app. Just Futures Law wrote to Hysen earlier this year, questioning the fairness of using an algorithm to assess whether someone is a flight risk and raising concerns over how much data SmartLINK collects. Such AI systems, which score or screen people, are used widely but remain largely unregulated even though some have been found to discriminate on race, gender or other protected traits. DHS said in an email that it is committed to ensuring that its use of AI is transparent and safeguards privacy and civil rights while avoiding biases. The agency said it is working to implement the Biden administration’s requirements on using AI , but Hysen said in his letter that security officials may waive those requirements for certain uses. Trump has publicly vowed to repeal Biden's AI policy when he returns to the White House in January. “DHS uses AI to assist our personnel in their work, but DHS does not use the outputs of AI systems as the sole basis for any law enforcement action or denial of benefits,” a spokesperson for DHS told the AP. Trump has not revealed how he plans to carry out his promised deportation of an estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally. Although he has proposed invoking wartime powers, as well as military involvement, the plan would face major logistical challenges — such as where to keep those who have been detained and how to find people spread across the country — that AI-powered surveillance tools could potentially address. Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump, did not answer questions about how they plan to use DHS’ tech, but said in a statement that “President Trump will marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation” in American history. Over 100 civil society groups sent a letter on Friday urging the Office of Management and Budget to require DHS to comply with the Biden administration’s guidelines. OMB did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Just Futures Law’s executive director, Paromita Shah, said if immigrants are scored as flight risks, they are more likely to remain in detention, "limiting their ability to prepare a defense in their case in immigration court, which is already difficult enough as it is.” SmartLINK, part of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, is run by BI Inc., a subsidiary of the private prison company The GEO Group. The GEO Group also contracts with ICE to run detention centers. ICE is tight-lipped about how it uses SmartLINK’s location feature to find and arrest immigrants. Still, public records show that during Trump’s first term in 2018, Manassas, Virginia-based employees of BI Inc. relayed immigrants’ GPS locations to federal authorities, who then arrested over 40 people. In a report last year to address privacy issues and concerns, DHS said that the mobile app includes security features that “prohibit access to information on the participant’s mobile device, with the exception of location data points when the app is open.” But the report notes that there remains a risk that data collected from people "may be misused for unauthorized persistent monitoring.” Such information could also be stored in other ICE and DHS databases and used for other DHS mission purposes, the report said. On investor calls earlier this month, private prison companies were clear-eyed about the opportunities ahead. The GEO Group’s executive chairman George Christopher Zoley said that he expects the incoming Trump administration to “take a much more aggressive approach regarding border security as well as interior enforcement and to request additional funding from Congress to achieve these goals.” “In GEO’s ISAP program, we can scale up from the present 182,500 participants to several hundreds of thousands, or even millions of participants,” Zoley said. That same day, the head of another private prison company told investors he would be watching closely to see how the new administration may change immigrant monitoring programs. “It’s an opportunity for multiple vendors to engage ICE about the program going forward and think about creative and innovative solutions to not only get better outcomes, but also scale up the program as necessary,” Damon Hininger, CEO of the private prison company CoreCivic Inc. said on an earnings call. GEO did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, CoreCivic said that it has played “a valued but limited role in America’s immigration system” for both Democrats and Republicans for over 40 years.Chegg Stock Leaps To Nearly 3-Month High On Convertible Notes Buyback, Wins Retail Approval
Juve deepen Man City crisis, Barcelona into Champions League knockoutsAccording to the official response issued by Alibaba, the fire at the data center has been successfully extinguished. Firefighters were promptly dispatched to the scene and took swift action to contain and put out the fire, preventing it from causing further damage. Thanks to their quick response and effective firefighting measures, the fire was brought under control, and the data center's operations have since resumed normalcy.The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains one of the most intractable global challenges of our time. Yet virtue signalling won’t bring peace and the Albanese Labor Government’s recent moves highlight this problem. Earlier this year, Senator Fatima Payman — a Labor Senator at the time — crossed the floor in the Senate to support a Greens-sponsored motion to recognise Palestine as a state. She was admonished by Labor for deviating from Australia’s long-standing bipartisan policy which supports a two-state solution contingent on negotiations between the two sides. Yet this month, the Albanese Labor Government has gone further than Senator Payman and voted at the United Nations to recognise Palestinian sovereignty over certain natural resources. If Labor was prepared to support this UN vote, why go through the trouble of ostracising Senator Payman? Either way, symbolism may win headlines, but it does little for solutions. The real challenge is establishing a framework for negotiations. Peace cannot and should not involve the displacement of either community. Expecting Jewish Israelis to “go back” to the United States, Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Morocco, Iraq, Yemen or Iran — where their grandparents once lived before making Aliyah — is no solution. Likewise, the idea that Palestinians should just move to Jordan or Egypt is also no solution. It’s only through mutual recognition that a negotiated solution can be achieved. As to what concessions are made on final status issues (eg: borders, refugees, security, settlements, natural resources and status of the Old City of Jerusalem) it is up to each side’s leadership to negotiate. What’s up to the international community is to help establish the conditions for negotiations in the first place. The reality is, there has been no such process in place for decades. Following six years of clashes during nationalist uprising known as the First Intifada (1987 to 1993), the Oslo Accords — while imperfect — at least came to offer hope. Facilitated by Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Jørgen Holst and supported by US President Bill Clinton, these accords managed to bring the two sides together after decades of reluctance. Tragically, the momentum was undermined by anti-peace elements across the divide. On the Palestinian side, militant groups saw leader Yasser Arafat as a ‘sellout’ for signing the accords and ramped up attacks against Israel. On the Israeli side, Baruch Goldstein claimed the lives of 29 Palestinians in Hebron in 1994 at the tomb of Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah. Then in 1995, Israeli assassin Yigal Amir claimed the life of peace-making Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for signing the accords. By this stage, the peaceful spirit of Oslo had diminished. In May 1999, One Israel coalition leader Ehud Barak went to the general election on a promise to restore that spirit and resume talks. Fifty-six per cent of the Israeli public supported Barak over his rival Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who received 44% of the vote. Barak did as promised and met Arafat at Camp David in July 2000, hosted by US President Clinton. Each side walked away blaming the other for refusing to budge on final status issues. Meanwhile, the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem where the Dome of the Rock has stood since 692 CE also happens to be the site of two previous Jewish Temples. The First Temple was demolished in 586 BCE by the Babylonians and the Second in 70 CE by the Romans followed by mass expulsion of Jewish people in 135 CE. Observant members of the Jewish community believe the Temple Mount to be the designated site for their yet-to-be-built Third Temple. For Palestinians and the wider Muslim world, losing the Dome of the Rock has been a source of anxiety since the early days of Jewish settlement in Ottoman-ruled Palestine starting in 1882. An Australian by the name of Denis Michael Rohan in 1969 did attempt to set the Temple Mount on fire and was arrested by Israeli police. Although his efforts were thwarted, incidents like these and the 29 lives lost at Hebron in 1994 only help reinforce greater anxieties and breed mistrust about the prospects of shared access to any heritage site. It was against this anxious backdrop that in September 2000, Israeli politician Ariel Sharon made a visit up to the Temple Mount. Palestinians responded with riots. Israeli police began its crackdown. News about Palestinian casualties spread throughout the West Bank. Suddenly, this chaos culminated into another full-blown nationalist uprising from 2000 to 2005 known as the Second Intifada. Meanwhile, the same Israeli public that had given 56 per cent of the popular vote to Barak and his promise of peace was now so traumatised by continued attacks on nightclubs, school buses and cafes that safety had taken over as the number one national priority. Israel responded by building a 708 km security barrier made up of concrete and fencing to prevent attacks from the West Bank. In 2005, Israel withdrew its forces and Jewish settlements from Gaza, which went on to being taken over by militants, who eventually orchestrated the 7th October attacks in 2023. Since Camp David in July 2000, only two peace plans have emerged: the Olmert Plan in 2008 and the Trump Plan in 2020. Both were unsuccessful and what went wrong depends on who you ask. The bottom line is, the absence of a peace process has consequences that go beyond the Middle East. Unresolved conflicts jack up oil prices, create uncertainty in the stock market, discourage investment, disrupt trade, create refugee crises and end up dragging developed countries like Australia into costly wars. Not to mention the threats to social cohesion from clashing views over this conflict on Australian soil. Suffice it to say, a solution wouldn’t just benefit the Middle East, but the entire world. Yet instead of bringing the two sides to the table, the Albanese Labor Government is more interested in symbolism. Neither Senator Payman’s floor crossing nor Labor’s UN vote have helped create a framework for negotiations. All each move does is highlight the futility of virtue signalling. Israel has a right to exist and maintain its Jewish demographic majority. Palestinian civilians deserve a fair go at the same things the rest of us seek: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The longer the world prioritises symbolism over solutions, the further we’ll be from real peace. Dr Sherry Sufi is a Western Australian author and columnist. His latest book Australia On Trial: Accusations and Defence argues that Australia is not a racist country built on ‘stolen land’ and that it does have a way of life worth defending.
Among the key features of the smart fire safety and monitoring systems to be installed in schools are automated fire detection sensors, intelligent alarm systems, and remote monitoring and control capabilities. These components work seamlessly together to create a comprehensive fire safety network that can quickly detect and alert authorities to any signs of fire, smoke, or abnormal temperature fluctuations. Moreover, the systems will be interconnected with the local fire department and emergency services to facilitate rapid coordination and response in case of an emergency.
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