download ssbet77 ERC firms up ‘pricing parameters’ for GEA-3’s hydro, geothermal capacitiesA group is proposing two new power projects in the north end of Fort Frances that it says will generate clean electricity and help support the municipality for decades. Council of the town of Fort Frances heard a presentation at their Monday, November 25, 2024, meeting from FirstLight Energy, a power producer, developer and energy storage company that operates in the U.S. and Canada. The presentation brought before council was in regards to a potential battery energy storage project, or BESP, as well as a solar panel array, both located north of town but within municipal boundaries. The company said the projects would allow them to help to address the Ontario Ministry of Energy’s call for an additional 5,000 MW of power capacity in the province’s electrical grid by 2026 in order to make up for projected shortfalls. FirstLight Senior Project Manager Development Alex Moore said the proposed project complies with the Ontario independent energy system operator’s aim to split procurement for the projected shortfall into two streams, energy and capacity. “this procurement has intended to fill projected shortfalls over the coming 20 years in energy due to increasing economic growth, industrial demand, population growth, and the phase out of old existing generating assets. So the energy stream looks to increase the total energy generated in Ontario through low carbon renewable sources, while the capacity stream will increase Ontario’s electricity system resilience and energy security by providing immediate on demand power, handling peak demand and shifting a lot of the renewable energy generation to times when it’s needed the most. The two projects that we’re going to be discussing mainly today, fall into both of those streams.” Moore said the BESP would be located in the northwest of Fort Frances, with two possible locations being identified near the landfill site on either side of the road leading off of McIrvine. Both locations are near the existing hydro lines and would allow for the proposed battery storage facility to provide 40 megawatts of power for a duration of eight hours . The facility itself would be a number of shipping containers housing a series of lithium ion phosphate batteries, which Moore said are safer than other forms of lithium ion technologies, which have been known to experience fires and runaway situations that can lead to significant damage. To establish the BESP, Moore said their company would look for a suitable partner to act as a supplier for the batteries, and ensure that whoever is selected has a “robust and established” safety record for such a project. The solar farm project, on the other hand, will potentially be located to the north of Fort Frances removed from the residential areas and adjacent to the hydro lines. Moore said the solar project will have a maximum capacity of up to 100 megawatts, which based on preliminary estimates, he said would be enough to provide power to 12,000 homes in Ontario. In terms of benefits to the town, not only would these tow projects represent up to $300 million in capital investment, providing labour opportunities during construction and some full time jobs maintaining and operating them in the future, but FirstLight would also establish a Community Benefit Fund that would support initiatives like community projects, local food initiatives, recreational programs and events, and improvements to pedestrian activity, accessibility and urban green spaces. According to FirstLight’s presentation, the fund “is dependent on the overall project financials but typically is in the range of $1,000 - $1,500/MW/year.” The project would also provide the town with a long term income in the form of a 30+ year rent on the chosen pieces of property that FirstLight said would be between $250/acre/year to $350/acre/year, as well as an increase in property tax base through increased development value. While the project is still in the preliminary stages at this point, Moore said the next steps would be to hold a number of community engagement sessions with members of the public, First Nations, area trail users and other stakeholders to identify potential concerns and jointly develop solutions, as well as to receive a Municipal Support Resolution (MSR) from the Town, which Moore said is a key factor in helping them get approval from the government. “Municipal Support Resolutions are key aspects of projects that have now been mandated as part of this procurement,” Moore said. “The MSR is similar to a letter of intent expressing support for the project, but hasn’t removed any obligation requirements that projects might have in terms of permit regulations. We have ongoing approvals at a local, municipal or provincial, federal level. This ensures proponents engage early and often with municipalities and address any concerns of the council. The recent dates mandated by the ISO for compliant MSRs, which must fall within, be no earlier than a certain date and no later, at the procurement and draft stages, we’re not too sure yet on what those dates will be, but they’ll be released in the coming weeks.” Moore said the organization hopes to receive an MSR from the town of Fort Frances in early 2025, which would allow them to submit their bid later that year. In the event the bid is awarded, construction would be slated to start as early as 2027 following the procurement of neccessary permits and construction contracts. In response to questioning from council regarding possible noise pollution from a battery facility, Moore explained that these buildings have an HVAC component to them to allow the batteries to stay cool ,but are nowhere near as loud or power intensive as a similar size cryptocurrency or data processing centre, similar to a project which council had previously been presented. Moore said their minimum setback around the facility would be 200 to 300 meters from a residential or industrial property, so the noise levels would drop dramatically before reaching anyone who would otherwise be disturbed by them. Fort Frances mayor Andrew Hallikas posed of Moore what the emergency response would need to be in the event a fire at the battery storage facility owing to the specialized batteries intended to be in use. Moore repeated the safety improvements of lithium ion phosphate batteries over other lithium ion technologies, but also noted that the organization would develop a specific emergency safety response plan for the projects and technologies in use and provide dedicated training for first responders so they would be prepared in the event of an incident.

With a focus on human rights, US policy toward Latin America under Jimmy Carter briefly tempered a long tradition of interventionism in a key sphere of American influence, analysts say. Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 100, defied the furor of US conservatives to negotiate the handover of the Panama Canal to Panamanian control, suspended aid to multiple authoritarian governments in the region, and even attempted to normalize relations with Cuba. Carter's resolve to chart a course toward democracy and diplomacy, however, was severely tested in Central America and Cuba, where he was forced to balance his human rights priorities with pressure from adversaries to combat the spread of communism amid the Cold War standoff with the Soviet Union. "Latin America was fundamental and his global policy was oriented toward human rights, democratic values and multilateral cooperation," political analyst Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington, told AFP. During his 1977-1981 administration, which was sandwiched between the Republican presidencies of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, the Democrat sought to take a step back from US alignment with right-wing dictatorships in Latin America. An important symbol of Carter's approach was the signing of two treaties in 1977 to officially turn over the Panama Canal in 1999. "Jimmy Carter understood that if he did not return the canal to Panama, the relationship between the United States and Panama could lead to a new crisis in a country where Washington could not afford the luxury of instability," said Luis Guillermo Solis, a political scientist and former president of Costa Rica. Carter called the decision, which was wildly unpopular back home, "the most difficult political challenge I ever had," as he accepted Panama's highest honor in 2016. He also hailed the move as "a notable achievement of moving toward democracy and freedom." During his term, Carter opted not to support Nicaraguan strongman Anastasio Somoza, who was subsequently overthrown by the leftist Sandinista Front in 1979. But in El Salvador, the American president had to "make a very uncomfortable pact with the government," said Shifter. To prevent communists from taking power, Carter resumed US military assistance for a junta which then became more radical, engaging in civilian massacres and plunging El Salvador into a long civil war. Carter took a critical approach to South American dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay, suspending arms deliveries and imposing sanctions in some cases. But his efforts "did not achieve any progress in terms of democratization," said Argentine political scientist Rosendo Fraga. The American president also tried to normalize relations with Cuba 15 years after the missile crisis. He relaxed sanctions that had been in force since 1962, supported secret talks and enabled limited diplomatic representation in both countries. "With him, for the first time, the possibility of dialogue rather than confrontation as a framework for political relations opened up," Jesus Arboleya, a former Cuban diplomat, told AFP. But in 1980, a mass exodus of 125,000 Cubans to the United States, with Fidel Castro's blessing, created an unexpected crisis. It "hurt Carter politically with the swarm of unexpected immigrants," said Jennifer McCoy, a professor of political science at Georgia State University. Castro continued to support Soviet-backed African governments and even deployed troops against Washington's wishes, finally putting an end to the normalization process. However, more than 20 years later, Carter made a historic visit to Havana as ex-president, at the time becoming the highest-profile American politician to set foot on Cuban soil since 1959. During the 2002 visit, "he made a bold call for the US to lift its embargo, but he also called on Castro to embrace democratic opening," said McCoy, who was part of the US delegation for the trip, during which Castro encouraged Carter to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Cuban All-Star baseball game. "Castro was sitting in the front row and we were afraid he would rise to give a long rebuttal to Carter's speech. But he didn't. He just said, 'Let's go to the ball game.'" In the years following Carter's presidency, Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) would go on to resume a full-frontal confrontation with Cuba. Decades later, Barack Obama (2009-2017) opened a new phase of measured normalization, which Donald Trump (2017-2021) brought to an end. US President Joe Biden promised to review US policy toward Cuba, but hardened his stance after Havana cracked down on anti-government protests in 2021. "Carter showed that engagement and diplomacy are more fruitful than isolation," McCoy said. bur-lp-rd-jb/lbc/mlr/bfm/sst/bbkSparks scores 20 off the bench, Ball State knocks off Evansville 80-43Lance Morrow, a journalist, author and essayist who helped define Time magazine’s once-dominant place in American commentary, using a historian’s eye and taut prose to distill the country’s tragedies, triumphs and evolving culture, died Nov. 29 at his home in Spencertown, New York. He was 85. The cause was prostate cancer, said his wife, Susan Brind Morrow. Morrow was both observer and narrator during a more than seven-decade career that included books and memoirs, more than 20 years with a coveted back-page column in Time, and, later, time as a contributing writer to outlets such as the Wall Street Journal. His reportage and essays were often written with a grand and literary sweep that sought to capture a moment or a mood, whether the horror of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks or the collective grief after the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. “The shuttle crew, spectacularly democratic (male, female, black, white, Japanese American, Catholic, Jewish, Protestant), was the best of us, Americans thought, doing the best of things Americans do,” Morrow wrote in Time. “The mission seemed symbolically immaculate, the farthest reach of a perfectly American ambition to cross frontiers. And it simply vanished in the air.” As an author, meanwhile, Morrow peered deeply inward – giving readers a sense of a man who felt privileged and burdened. In his 2023 autobiography “The Noise of Typewriters,” he recounted his place in a golden age of print journalism when Time ruled the newsstands. He was, he said, a proud chronicler of the American Century. Yet there were shadows. In “Heart: A Memoir” (1995), written after a second heart attack, he turned his health crises into a deeper exploration of his psyche: despair from his witness to bloodshed in the Balkans and elsewhere and his long-held anger at his parents, a well-connected Washington couple he described as distant and constantly bickering. “An accumulation of palpable rage” had churned up and tried to “kill” his heart, he wrote. “Taking it as a kind of tribute, a sacrifice of myself to the rage god.” (He had a third heart attack shortly after the book was published.) Morrow arrived at Time magazine in 1965, two years after landing a job out of college at the Washington Star. The magazine was near the peak of its influence, with co-founder Henry Luce no longer editor but serving as chairman of parent company Time Inc. Morrow soon became a star byline, covering the 1967 riots in Detroit and the Vietnam War. As the Watergate scandal began to unfold before the 1972 presidential election, Morrow and Hugh Sidey ended a piece with a cri de coeur to the American electorate. “There is a somewhat depressing loss of innocence in failing to expect more from the nation’s public officials,” they wrote. “Somewhere in all of this huge indifference, the principle of moral leadership may be sinking without a trace.” In 1976, Morrow became a regular essayist for Time’s back page – a showcase spot that was seen as the magazine’s intellectual touchstone for the week. Morrow embraced the role. He infused his columns with references as diverse as Archimedes and Elvis. A column in 1979 on Iran’s Islamic Revolution avoided geopolitical hand-wringing and tried to put the toppling of the Western-supported monarchy in the context of other revolutions through history. In 1981, he wrote about modern celebrity gossip and followed the historical trail back to the Olympian quarrels of Zeus and Hera. Morrow’s views leaned conservative at times, including questioning the continued need for affirmative action. But he could give his imprimatur to liberal-backed initiatives such as environmental regulations and efforts to battle climate change. After the 9/11 attacks, Morrow issued what amounted to a call to arms. His piece, “The Case for Rage and Retribution,” was part of an entry that won Time a National Magazine Award for special issue coverage. “A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let’s have rage,” Morrow wrote. “What’s needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury – ruthless indignation that doesn’t leak away in a week or two, wandering off into Prozac-induced forgetfulness or into the next media sensation.” Morrow left the Time staff in the mid-1990s but remained for more than a decade as a special writer on contract. Over his career, he was part of more than 100 cover stories and seven “Man of the Year” (now “Person of the Year”) profiles, including one of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988. (He also wrote a “Women of the Year” story in 1976 that included first lady Betty Ford and tennis champion Billie Jean King.) Until earlier this year, Morrow produced a steady flow of columns for the Wall Street Journal, City Journal and others. In one of his last pieces, he took stock of President Joe Biden’s decision in July to bow out of the presidential race. “In this debacle, Biden’s laurels are withered; he does not deserve much glory,” he wrote in City Journal. Morrow also adopted the journalistic profile of an elder statesman – with a slightly jaded take on the profession’s trajectory in the internet age. “Being there is one of the imperatives of journalism,” he wrote in “The Noise of Typewriters.” “Or it used to be, before the age of screens, which changed everything. Being there is still a good idea.” ‘THINGS HAVE HAPPENED’ Lance Thomas Morrow was born in Philadelphia on Sept. 21, 1939, and raised in Washington. His father was a journalist whose jobs included Washington editor of the Saturday Evening Post and who later worked as a speechwriter and adviser to Nelson Rockefeller during his tenures as New York governor and vice president. His mother was a syndicated journalist for Knight newspapers and a writer. In books and essays, Morrow described his parents’ marriage as roiled by arguments and overshadowed by their mutual career ambitions. He recounted that for one summer, before he turned 10 years old, he and his older brother were left nearly alone at a family cottage with no electricity on Chesapeake Bay. Once a week, his father brought in supplies by car. “The past was full of grievances,” Morrow once said. “It lashed out, sometimes in the dark. The past was insane.” But his childhood also put him at the center of Washington’s political life. He was a Senate page, sometimes hustling down to the cafeteria to bring dishes of vanilla ice cream to Lyndon B. Johnson, then a Democratic senator from Texas. Morrow’s father sometimes loaned his car to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when the civil rights leader was visiting the capital. As a teenager, Morrow was once part of a touch football game in Georgetown with the Kennedys. “I have done nothing memorable in my life, and yet all around me, things have happened,” he said. Morrow received a bachelor’s degree in English from Harvard University in 1963. He already had his first bylines before college working a summer job at the Danville News in central Pennsylvania. From 1963 to 1965, he was on the staff of the Washington Star, where one of his colleagues, future Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein, became a lifelong friend. Morrow won the National Magazine Award in the essays and criticism category in 1981 for his columns at Time. He was finalist for the same award in 1991 for a cover story on the nature of evil – a project that included extensive interviews with Holocaust survivor and writer Elie Wiesel. Morrow returned to the subject in the book “Evil: An Investigation” (2003), which examined how factors including religion, literature and politics have influenced perceptions of malice and hatred through the ages. His other books include “The Chief: A Memoir of Fathers and Sons” (1985), a recollection of his relationship with his father; “Fishing in the Tiber” (1988), essays on American myths and history; and “The Best Year of Their Lives: Kennedy, Nixon, and Johnson in 1948” (2005), on how events in 1948 shaped three future presidents. From 1996 to 2006, Morrow was a professor of journalism at Boston University. His marriage to Brooke Wayne ended in divorce. He married Susan Brind, a journalist and writer, in 1988. Other survivors include two sons from his first marriage; and three grandchildren. In “The Noise of the Typewriters,” Morrow described journalism in almost Zen terms as a hunt for a defining moment of clarity. “Never be certain there is no meaning. Never be certain about anything too quickly. All journalism implies a concealed metaphysics – even a theology: All truth is part of the whole,” he wrote. “All is in motion. Be tolerant of chaos. Be patient. Wait for stillness. This is Journalism 101, according to me.” We invite you to add your comments. We encourage a thoughtful exchange of ideas and information on this website. By joining the conversation, you are agreeing to our commenting policy and terms of use . More information is found on our FAQs . You can modify your screen name here . Comments are managed by our staff during regular business hours Monday through Friday as well as limited hours on Saturday and Sunday. Comments held for moderation outside of those hours may take longer to approve. Please sign into your Sun Journal account to participate in conversations below. If you do not have an account, you can register or subscribe . Questions? Please see our FAQs . Your commenting screen name has been updated. Send questions/comments to the editors. « Previous

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In a single term as governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter propelled the state into a new era. The acronyms for state offices that still populate news stories about Georgia government – DOT, DNR – are lasting reminders of the massive reorganization that was a hallmark of his administration. But his legacy had already been largely determined by the time he sat down from giving his inauguration speech on Jan. 12, 1971. “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over. Our people have already made this major and difficult decision,” Carter said as he stood in front of the Capitol, pronouncing the end of a painful era with an engineer’s perfunctory certainty. The shock value of those words would fade quickly as Georgia raced ahead over the following years. But on that stage, that day, they came as a thunderclap. The former governor, Lester Maddox, had sold his Atlanta restaurant rather than serve black customers. George Wallace, running in the presidential primaries on a defiantly segregationist platform, carried the state in the 1968 election. And the rural populist campaign Carter ran for governor against “Cufflinks Carl” Sanders reminded many observers of the Alabama governor’s anti-establishment style, with whiffs of appeals to segregationists. Although his family was considered relatively liberal on such matters, Carter had straddled the race issue in his campaign, remarking to a reporter that he had “no trouble pitching for Wallace votes and Black votes at the same time.” Dick Pettys, who was a young reporter for the Associated Press, remembers the impact of the governor’s inauguration speech, which would land Carter on the cover of Time magazine as one of the “New South” governors making a departure from the segregated past. “That just blew everybody away, because they thought he was a Democrat just like all the other Democrats,” Pettys recalled. Carter made the bold statement at the suggestion of David Rabhan, a retired Air Force colonel and businessman who piloted his campaign plane. Rabhan would later spend a decade in an Iranian prison on an espionage charge, with Carter lobbying for his release post-presidency. But Carter’s racial views had already undergone a complex evolution. Carter’s first political race, for state Senate in 1962, came about because of an opening that was an indirect result of the landmark Baker v. Carr U.S. Supreme Court case affirming the “one man, one vote” principle. In his book “Turning Point: A Candidate, a State and a Nation Come of Age,” Carter described how he came to see his own aspirations, returning to his home state from the Navy, at the same time that African Americans in Georgia began demanding their share in the political system. His Navy career as an officer working on Adm. Hyman Rickover’s nuclear submarine project was shortened by the the death of his father and the demands of his family’s peanut warehouse business. When he returned to Plains, Carter brought ideas about modernizing the state, as well as a methodical, tireless style. This quality was in evidence after Carter finished third in the Democratic primary in his first bid for governor in 1966. He quickly set about keeping his political network alive after his loss, traveling the state in preparation for the 1970 race, defeating Sanders, the early favorite, by nearly 20 points, and Republican Hal Suit by a similar margin. His major campaign pledge was to bring order to the tangle of agencies, boards and commissions in state government. He made good with a reorganization bill which passed the House by one vote. His work still forms the basic organization plan of much of state government. Carter brought new faces into state government, including banker Bert Lance, who was given the most politically sensitive job, replacing the powerful state highway director, Jim Gillis, whom Carter had promised to fire during the campaign. Lance, who would become director of the federal Office of Management and Budget under President Carter, oversaw the conversion of the Highway Department into the Department of Transportation and helped Carter in his dealings with legislators — no easy job in itself. Lance recalled in his autobiography one of those dealings when a senator dropped by and presumed to tell the new governor how to get along with the state Senate. “I was watching Carter’s forehead. He has a vein that throbs when he’s getting mad, and that thing was going, Pow! Pow!” Carter is recognized as the state’s first environmentalist governor, highlighted by his action in stopping a planned dam on the Flint River at what is now Sprewell Bluff State Park west of Thomaston. Later, as president, he would push and sign the documents that created the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in metro Atlanta, and other bills that set aside millions of acres in Alaska and the lower 48 states. During the 1979 energy crisis, he had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House. President Ronald Reagan had them dismantled in 1986. While governor, he appointed more Blacks and women to positions in state government than any of his predecessors, enforced zero-based budgeting in the newly created departments, and won passage of a modest education plan. But by the end of his term, Carter’s relationship with the General Assembly had frayed. “He was fixated on doing things on time, and that irritated people to no end,” Pettys recalled. In those days, state law didn’t allow governors to run for a consecutive term. After four years of bruising political battles, it’s far from certain he could have been reelected. But more than a year before he left office, Carter had already announced he was running for president, and set his sights on broader horizons.Despite Mary Lou McDonald’s confidence around shaping a coalition without Fine Gael and Fianna Fail – the two parties that have dominated the landscape of Irish politics for a century – the pathway to government for Sinn Fein still appears challenging. With counting following Friday’s election still in the relatively early stages – after an exit poll that showed the main three parties effectively neck-and-neck – there is some way to go before the final picture emerges and the options for government formation crystalise. Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader, Simon Harris, has dismissed talk of a Sinn Fein surge and said he was “cautiously optimistic” about where his party will stand after all the votes are counted. Meanwhile, Ireland’s deputy premier and Fianna Fail leader, Micheal Martin, insisted his party has a “very clear route back to government” as he predicted seat gains. The counting process could last days because of Ireland’s complex system of proportional representation with a single transferable vote (PR-STV), where candidates are ranked by preference. The early indications have turned the focus to the tricky arithmetic of government formation, as the country’s several smaller parties and many independents potentially jockey for a place in government. Ms McDonald told reporters at the RDS count centre in Dublin that she would be “very, very actively pursuing” the potential to form a government with other parties on the left of the political spectrum. The smaller, left-leaning parties in Ireland include the Social Democrats, the Irish Labour Party, the Green Party and People Before Profit-Solidarity. Ms McDonald said her party had delivered an “incredible performance” in the election. “I think it’s fair to say that we have now confirmed that we have broken the political mould here in this state,” she said. “Two party politics is now gone. It’s consigned to the dustbin of history and that, in itself, is very significant.” She added: “I am looking to bring about a government of change, and I’m going to go and look at all formulations. “If you want my bottom line, the idea of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael for another five years, in our strong opinion, is not a good outcome for Irish society. “Obviously, I want to talk to other parties of the left and those that we share very significant policy objectives with. So I’m going to do that first and just hear their mind, hear their thinking. But be very clear, we will be very, very actively pursuing entrance into government.” In Friday night’s exit poll, Sinn Fein was predicted to take 21.1% of first-preference votes, narrowly ahead of outgoing coalition partners Fine Gael and Fianna Fail at 21% and 19.5% respectively. Prior to the election, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael both ruled out entering government with Sinn Fein. Fine Gael leader Mr Harris rejected suggestions Sinn Fein had broken new ground. He told reporters in his count centre in Greystones, Co Wicklow: “Certainly we haven’t seen a Sinn Fein surge or anything like it. “I mean, it looks likely, on the figures that we’ve seen now, fewer people, many fewer people would have voted Sinn Fein in this election than the last one. “In fact, I think they’re down by around 5% and actually the parties, particularly the two parties, the two larger parties in government, are likely to receive significant support from the electorate. So definitely, politics in Ireland has gotten much more fragmented.” He said it was too early to tell what the next government would look like. “I think anybody who makes any suggestion about who is going to be the largest party or the construct of the next government, they’re a braver person than I am,” he said. “Our electoral system dictates that there’ll be many, many transfers that will go on for hours, if not days, before we know the final computations at all. “But what I am very confident about is that my party will have a very significant role to play in the years ahead, and I’m cautiously optimistic and excited.” Fianna Fail’s Mr Martin told reporters at a count centre in Cork he was confident that the numbers exist to form a government with parties that shared his political viewpoint. Mr Martin said it “remains to be seen” whether he would return to the role of Taoiseach – a position he held between 2020 and 2022 – but he expressed confidence his party would outperform the exit poll prediction. “It’s a bit too early yet to call the exact type of government that will be formed or the composition of the next government,” he said. “But I think there are, there will be a sufficiency of seats, it seems to me, that aligns with the core principles that I articulated at the outset of this campaign and throughout the campaign, around the pro-enterprise economy, around a positively pro-European position, a government that will strongly push for home ownership and around parties that are transparently democratic in how they conduct their affairs.” Asked if it would be in a coalition with Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Social Democrats, he said that would be “racing a bit too far ahead”. The final result may dictate that if Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are to return to government, they may need more than one junior partner, or potentially the buy-in of several independent TDs. Mr Martin said it was unclear how quickly a government can be formed, as he predicted his party would gain new seats. “It will be challenging. This is not easy,” he added. The junior partner in the outgoing government – the Green Party – looks set for a bruising set of results. Green leader Roderic O’Gorman is in a fight to hold onto his seat, as are a number of party colleagues, including Media Minister Catherine Martin. “It’s clear the Green Party has not had a good day,” he said. The early counting also suggested potential trouble for Fianna Fail in Wicklow, where the party’s only candidate in the constituency, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, is considered to have a battle ahead, with the risk of losing his seat. Meanwhile, there is significant focus on independent candidate Gerard Hutch who, on Saturday evening, was sitting in fourth place in the four-seat constituency of Dublin Central. Last spring, Mr Hutch was found not guilty by the non-jury Special Criminal Court of the murder of David Byrne, in one of the first deadly attacks of the Hutch-Kinahan gangland feud. Mr Byrne, 33, died after being shot six times at a crowded boxing weigh-in event at the Regency Hotel in February 2016. A Special Criminal Court judge described Mr Hutch, 61, as the patriarchal figurehead of the Hutch criminal organisation and said he had engaged in “serious criminal conduct”. The constituency will be closely watched as other hopefuls wait to see if transfers from eliminated candidates may eventually rule him out of contention. In the constituency of Louth, the much-criticised selection of John McGahon appeared not to have paid off for Fine Gael. The party’s campaign was beset by questioning over footage entering the public domain of the candidate engaged in a fight outside a pub in 2018. The Social Democrats have a strong chance of emerging as the largest of the smaller parties. The party’s leader, Holly Cairns, was already celebrating before a single vote was counted however, having announced the birth of her baby girl on polling day.

MULTAN, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Nov, 2024) Deputy Commissioner (DC) Bukhari stressed the importance of running a comprehensive awareness campaign to highlight the significance of planning in today's digital era. He said a campaign should be launched and intensified with the help of digital to bring about positive social change regarding maternal and child health and unchecked population growth. Chairing a meeting of the District Coordination Committee for the Department, he stated that shifting social attitudes towards planning was essential to achieve population control targets. "Positive social change was key to addressing population-related challenges and taking further measures in this regard was the need of the hour," he remarked. District Officer Chaudhry Mujeeb Rabbani briefed the meeting about the department's performance during the session. APP/qbsKelly Stafford drops six word comment on Jason Kelce and Kyle’s pregnancy reveal after confessing jealousy of Taylor Swift

Sinn Fein actively pursuing route into government, insists leader McDonaldAfter a delay of two months, the official route presentation for the 2025 Giro d'Italia and the Giro d'Italia Women has been set for January 13. Organisers RCS Sports made the announcement on social media channels for the pair of Grand Tours on Wednesday, that "finally" the formal presentation event will be held on the second Monday of the new year from the Auditorium della Musica Ennio Morricone in Rome. The live event, which also has been broadcast for global viewers, is scheduled to begin at 18:00 local time. Rome is expected to be announced as the final stage for Giro on June 1, which would confirm its participation for a third consecutive year. The Grand Partenza and the opening stages of the 2025 Giro are expected to take place in Albania, beginning Friday, May 9. The route of the Giro d'Italia Women will take place July 6-13 for a 36th edition, with the town of Aprica in the province of Sondrio expected to host a stage finish. Speculation swirls about the inclusion of the famous Passo di Mortirolo, last included as the Cima Coppi for women in 2016, as it is located in the same area of northern Lombardy. The original route announcement was scheduled for November 12, but was postponed at the end of October for 'technical problems'. There was speculation in the media of possible logistical and financial difficulties surrounding the opening few days of the Giro in Albania, and that the Grand Partenza could take place in Sicily. Organisers spoke on the 'Race Radio' weekly broadcast by RAI Sport saying that the routes have been solidified for many weeks and that the delay was due to "internal problems". "You will know everything in January, the month of the presentation: you will know where it will start and where it will arrive," Mauro Vengi, director of the Giro d'Italia, was reported to say on 'Race Radio' by Quotidiano Sportivo . Get The Leadout Newsletter The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox! "It is an important year, because it is the year of Jubilee, and so along the way, there will be many 'goodies' that you will discover in due time." Organisers may also clear up questions at the route presentation about the sponsorship of the pink leader's jersey, the contract with Italian company Enel set to expire at the end of 2024 and reportedly worth up to €8 million. Enel has sponsored the Giro since 2016. According to AS.com , the 2025 route for the men's Giro will include a pair of time trials, a stage summit finish at Sestrieres and a stage across the infamous Stelvio. The official unveiling of the 2025 Vuelta a España route has been set for December 19 in Madrid, that Grand Tour is expected to begin in Italy.

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