abet raz ST Picks: Living with HIV - 8 patients share their stories'Those are ships': Popular UFO reporting app buzzes with New Mexico activityLudhiana: The municipal corporation (MC) has intensified its efforts to improve the management of this city’s solid waste, launching a ₹53-crore initiative to process 700 metric tonnes of fresh waste generated daily. This is the latest in a series of large-scale projects aimed at tackling the burgeoning urban garbage problem. Municipal commissioner Aaditya Dachalwal claimed that the city produced about 1,100 MT of garbage each day, and earlier initiatives, including a partnership with a Chennai-based company to convert 400 MT of waste into green charcoal, addressed only part of the issue. However, this new project focuses on the remaining 700 MT of daily waste, ensuring comprehensive treatment and disposal. The three-year contract for this project has been awarded to Greentech Environ Management . The civic body will provide the company with a 6-acre site at the Jamalpur dump, where the contractor will establish a processing plant within two months. This initiative builds on earlier efforts to manage Ludhiana’s long-standing waste issues. The city has launched projects worth ₹77 crore already to remediate about 21.62 lakh MT of legacy waste at the Jamalpur and Jainpur landfills. Bioremediation at these sites is expected to free up 41 acres of municipal land, which will be repurposed for future waste management. Dachlawal claimed that: “Clearing the heaps of trash is essential, but tackling fresh waste is critical equally to prevent the re-accumulation of garbage.” With this new project, Ludhiana has now invested about ₹130 crore in solid-waste management initiatives. These efforts mark a turning point for the city, aiming to alleviate its long-standing garbage crisis and ensure sustainable waste disposal systems. Appeal to residents MC commissioner Dachalwal has stressed that the success of these projects hinges on public cooperation. He said: “We are taking all necessary steps to improve waste management, but we need residents to segregate dry and wet waste at the source and avoid dumping garbage in open spaces or vacant plots.” As the city grapples with growing urban footprint, the MC’s commitment to cleaner streets and better waste management signals a transformative shift. The latest ₹53-crore project reflects the city’s determination to address both fresh and legacy waste, paving the way for a more sustainable future. Ludhiana’s waste management reforms stand as a testament to the city’s resolve to tackle environmental challenges head-on, transforming waste from a burden into an opportunity for sustainable development. We also published the following articles recently RMC plans eight facilities to improve waste management Ranchi's Municipal Corporation is investing Rs 28 crore to revolutionize its waste management system. Eight new sorting facilities and a refuse-derived fuel center will be established to improve waste segregation and processing. This initiative aims to enhance the efficiency of the city's biogas plant by providing cleaner organic waste, ultimately producing compressed biogas as a sustainable energy source. Youth should shift to green energy and waste management biz: Sawant Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant encouraged Goan youth to pursue entrepreneurial ventures in renewable energy and waste management. He highlighted lucrative opportunities in these sectors, urging a shift from seeking government jobs. Sawant pointed out that non-Goan contractors profit significantly from the state's waste management expenditure, prompting youth to capitalize on this sector. Revolutionary Water Waste Recycling Initiative at Bhopal Ijtema A groundbreaking water recycling initiative is underway at Bhopal's Eitkhedi Ijtema site, potentially the first of its kind in India for an event of this scale. The project aims to recycle 100% of the 10 million liters of wastewater generated daily by over a million attendees. This recycled water is used to control dust, recharge groundwater, and support local agriculture. Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India . Don't miss daily games like Crossword , Sudoku , and Mini Crossword .

Application Hosting Market Overview: Market Share, Value, and CAGR Projections for 2024-2031ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Cam Skattebo and Arizona State are on quite a run in their Big 12 debut after being the preseason pick to finish at the bottom of the conference. Now the Sun Devils will represent their new 16-team league in the 12-team College Football Playoff after a 45-19 win over Iowa State in the Big 12 championship game Saturday.

NoneBEIRUT: Syria’s embattled government said Saturday it was setting up a ring of steel around Damascus, state media reported, as rebels on a lightning advance said they were bearing down on the city. Syria’s presidency also denied reports that President Bashar Al-Assad had left Damascus, saying he was “following up on his work and national and constitutional duties from the capital”. “There is a very strong security and military cordon on the far edges of Damascus and its countryside, and no one... can penetrate this defensive line that we, the armed forces, are building,” Interior Minister Mohammed Al-Rahmoun told state television from the capital. Earlier, Assad’s government denied that the army had withdrawn from areas around Damascus. “Our forces have begun the final phase of encircling the capital,” said rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani, with the Islamist-led alliance that launched the offensive. The leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group which has headed the assault, told fighters to prepare to take the seat of Assad’s government, just over a week into a renewed offensive in the long-dormant conflict. “Damascus awaits you,” said HTS’ Ahmed Al-Sharaa in a statement on Telegram, using his real name instead of his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani. Syria’s defense ministry said army forces were “present in all areas of the Damascus countryside”. “There is no truth to news claiming our armed forces... have withdrawn” from positions near Damascus, it said. In a Damascus suburb on Saturday, witnesses said protesters toppled a statue of the late president Hafez Al-Assad, who handed Syria’s rule to his son. Similar scenes were witnessed in images shared by local media in the southern city of Daraa and in online footage verified by AFP from Hama, north of the capital. In Hama, an AFP photographer saw residents set fire to a giant poster of President Assad on the facade of city hall. “The rebels entered Hama, it was a great joy for us — something we had been waiting for since 2011,” said resident Maymouna Jawad, of the year Assad’s crackdown on democracy protests escalated into civil war. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government backs armed groups in north Syria and has sent ground forces across the border numerous times since 2016, said on Saturday that Syria “is tired of war, blood and tears”. “Our wish is for our neighbor, Syria, to find the peace and tranquility it has been dreaming of for 13 years.” US President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States should “not get involved” in the situation in Syria where fast-moving rebel forces say they have begun to encircle the capital Damascus. “Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. Trump said in his post that Russia, “with the loss there of over 600,000 soldiers, seems incapable of stopping this literal march through Syria, a country they have protected for years”. “But now they are, like possibly Assad himself, being forced out, and it may actually be the best thing that can happen to them. There was never much of a benefit in Syria for Russia.” The HTS leader said in a CNN interview published on Friday that “the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime”. As government forces fall back in the face of the offensive gathering even more momentum, a war monitor and Abdel Ghani said rebels were within 20 kilometers of Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had ceded more key ground, losing control of all of southern Daraa province, cradle of the 2011 uprising. The army said it was “redeploying and repositioning” in Daraa and another southern province, Sweida. The Britain-based Observatory said troops were also evacuating posts in Quneitra, near the Zionist-annexed Golan Heights where the Zionist entity said it was boosting its troop presence. Jordan has urged its citizens to leave neighboring Syria “as soon as possible”, as have Assad ally Russia and the United States, which both keep troops in Syria. After the HTS-led rebels seized Aleppo and Hama earlier in their offensive since Nov 27, Daraa was taken by local armed groups, the Observatory said. An AFP correspondent in Daraa saw local fighters guarding public property and civil institutions on Saturday. In Sweida city, a local fighter told AFP that after government forces had withdrawn “from their positions and headquarters, we are now securing and protecting vital facilities”. “We must remain vigilant to avoid descending into chaos, as chaos will harm everyone.” In the central Homs area, a key stepping stone to Damascus, the Observatory said government forces had brought “large reinforcements” and stopped the rebel advance. By Friday, the government was also pulling troops out of Deir Ezzor in the east, with Kurdish-led forces saying they had moved in. An Iraqi security source told AFP that Baghdad has allowed in hundreds of Syrian soldiers who “fled the front lines” and entered through the Al-Qaim border crossing, the Syrian side of which is in Deir Ezzor province. A second source put the figure at 2,000 troops, including officers. HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. Proscribed as a terrorist organization by Western governments, it has sought to soften its image in recent years. As the Islamist rebels seize more territory, they have sought to reassure minority groups living in areas now under their control. “We ask that all sects be reassured... for the era of sectarianism and tyranny has gone away forever,” said Abdel Ghani. Since the offensive began last week, at least 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed, according to the Observatory. The United Nations said the violence has displaced 370,000 people. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for a “political solution to the conflict”, his spokesperson said Friday, in a call with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. Fidan his Iranian and Russian counterparts discussed Syria in Qatar on Saturday. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the parties agreed on the initiation of “political dialogue between the Syrian government and the legitimate opposition groups”. Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov said it was “inadmissible” to allow a “terrorist group to take control” of Syrian territory. Moscow and Tehran have supported Assad’s government and army during the war, as has Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. A source close to the group said Hezbollah had sent 2,000 fighters into Syria, to an area near the Lebanese border, “to defend its positions”. – AgenciesThe arcane red light reportedly throbbed in the sky above Albuquerque's South Valley for about an hour in October 2023, caught on camera by a bewildered man who says, "I've never seen a light that bright." A solid, bright orb drifted with angular elegance in February over Jal, near the state's southern border, startling an observer. As the nighttime scene unfolded near a Lea County oilfield, the observer reported feeling like the air was astir with a leaden static. Videos of these episodes of stargazing turning bizarre in a state known for enigmatic nighttime occurrences are among those catalogued by a popular UFO reporting platform and cellphone app operated by Enigma Labs. The company, founded in 2020, has issued a new report naming New Mexico its top state for sightings per capita, with several strange videos submitted this year showing lights over Albuquerque. "New Mexico is a focal point for UFOs," said Alejandro Rojas, a consultant for Enigma Labs. "But it's really interesting that New Mexico has really popped up in our data lately as being heads above the leader when it comes to submissions per person." The data set comes as an obsession with unidentified flying objects continues nationwide, even after a congressionally mandated Pentagon report released in February found no evidence the federal government was covering up knowledge of extraterrestrial technology and no evidence UFO sightings are signs of aliens visiting Earth. A Pentagon office, known as the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, was created in 2022 to track what the government calls UAPs — unidentified anomalous phenomena — with 757 reported to the office between May and June of this year, according to a November report . Still, people continue to see things. In the fast-paced digital age, Enigma Labs provides an online trove of oddities — an endless proliferation of sights and sounds. The private company offers a website and cellphone app allowing UFO enthusiasts — and regular people who believe they have encountered the anomalous — to upload videos and photos with descriptions, aggregating and crowdsourcing the data. "Like millions of ants crawling around us," the individual who spotted something in Jal said in the Enigma post. "I hate to say it. Those are ships!" gushed a man who claimed he was witnessing alien plasma ships in Gallup near the Arizona border. All told, the Land of Enchantment's rate of 12.2 Enigma entries per 100,000 people is far higher than the next closest states of Nevada and Arizona, which boast submission rates of around 9 per 100,000 residents, according to the company. UFO researchers have theories about the large volume of entries here, citing how alien mythology and lore have been woven into the state's cultural fabric for decades. According to the National UFO Reporting Center, 1,708 sightings have been reported in New Mexico, most of them since 2000. "We have a relatively small population, but the one thing we do have, and I think this factors into your question, is a preponderance of military operations areas and scientific development areas — Los Alamos [National Laboratory], Sandia [National Laboratories] — a rich history of sightings," said David Marler, a longtime UFO researcher who lives in the Albuquerque area and serves as the executive director of a new UFO records center in Rio Rancho. While the Roswell incident has long been a dominant talker, Marler said there are many other intriguing reports of encounters over the last 75 years in New Mexico: April 1964, Socorro; April 1964, La Madera; March 1950, Farmington; November 1957, Kirtland Air Force Base. Enigma Labs runs a New Mexico page that archives and cataloging sightings, rating and categorizing videos. As of late November, the company had received 278 New Mexico sightings directly, according to an email from Rojas. Combined with publicly available sources, it has 3,531 total sightings in New Mexico archived. "When you go back and look at early magazine reports and military reports going back to the 1950s, there were magazine articles showing maps where a lot of UFO sightings. One of the most prevalent states was New Mexico," Marler said. A fascination with the unknown has long gripped New Mexico. It's a state renowned — thanks to its dry climate, low population density and sprawling deserts — for its night sky viewing. "One of the most spectacular reports is from last August. A witness said they were watching TV when they caught this weird object out of the corner of their eye. They were able to get a few seconds of video before it disappeared behind nearby trees," Rojas said of video footage taken in Chaparral , a Southern New Mexico community near El Paso. The video shows a floating gray object with a television heard in the background. New Mexico sightings logged into the Enigma Labs database break down like this: Albuquerque, 754; Las Cruces, 159; Roswell, 143; Alamogordo, 107; and Deming, 95. Rojas said eight sightings have been reported to Enigma from Santa Fe and one in Los Alamos. Two friends were driving along San Mateo Boulevard in Albuquerque late one night in February when a moving craft in the sky lit up with lights flashing in a diagonal pattern. In an episode that lasted about a minute, "it went from a long craft to a triangle shaped craft with only 3 lights, and then to something that resembled a helicopter with one light, and quickly disappeared," states the caption on the for the video posted to Enigma Lab's site. Tens of thousands of case files, among the earliest dated in 1947, are housed in Rio Rancho. They relay the stories of witnesses, couched in the diction of reports written by law enforcement officers or members of the military as far back as 70 years ago. The files can be pored over at the new National UFO Historical Records Center, a facility that recently opened and can be visited by appointment. "It's the largest historical archive ever assembled on the history of the subject in the history of the United States," said Marler, the director. The volunteer-operated research center, at 1301 Nicklaus Drive SE, opened in October. It holds rolls of decades-old microfilm, hundreds of thousands of audio recordings, an exhaustive library of foreign and domestic magazines, newsletters and periodicals — all dealing with reports of mysterious craft spotted from Earth. Some 2,000 books line the shelves, along with an interminable supply of UFO investigations and intrigue, with tales and testimony for those who believe. "It's really set up for academics and for the general public who have a serious interest in the subject. It's not for the casual enthusiast per se," Marler said. The center has files from the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena, records kept by the largest citizen organization in the U.S. devoted to cataloguing UFO reports from 1956 until 1980, the year the group published its final newsletter. The center is currently digitizing the files for the first time ever. Also in its possession are collections from the Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization, once based in Alamogordo, with tens of thousands of case files — as well as collections from the UFO Research Committee of Akron, especially active in the 1950s in Ohio. "We're literally getting these holdings in from all different points of the globe," Marler said. Well-documented cases beyond Roswell Academics of unexplained phenomena have descended on the Land of Enchantment for a beloved UFO festival in Roswell. But the mythic narratives don't go dry there. "Unfortunately, Roswell, Roswell, Roswell. That always dominates the conversation and there are better, more well-documented cases on file," Marler said, referring to the 1947 crash of a craft near the Southern New Mexico city. While many believe it was an extraterrestrial spacecraft, the federal government has said it was a secret military balloon aimed at detecting Soviet atomic bomb tests. Marler said many New Mexicans aren't aware of other cases within their own state. In November of 1957, a UFO was tracked on radar and "violated" the perimeter of the Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, hovering around restricted sites, according to reports Marler has reviewed. He said the Rio Rancho records center has the original case file on it from "Project Blue Book," the Air Force name for a project that investigated UFO reports between 1947 and 1969. "Two Air Force personnel were observing it with binoculars at night. They described it as looking like a car standing vertically on end with a white light emanating out of the bottom. The object had the ability to hover, to rapidly accelerate, to move slowly," Marler said. The Socorro incident in April 1964 — unresolved in the Air Force investigations that transpired at the time and widely reported by New Mexico news publications — was observed by local police Officer Lonnie Zamora, who claimed he witnessed two humanoids beside a shiny, egg-shaped object that later rose into the air from an arroyo as flames belched from the rising craft. Marler said he had believed the Socorro case was an isolated one. In the last year, however, he received the APRO files and came across an account published in the Santa Fe New Mexican of a similar report four days after the Socorro incident from La Madera, a remote community north of Ojo Caliente in Rio Arriba County. "Eyewitness Recounts Passage of 'Thing' Burning in Sky," reads a headline in the April 28, 1964, edition of The New Mexican . "It talks about Socorro, but it talks about a landing in La Madera ... and it described an egg-shaped object," Marler said. "... New Mexico State Police [investigated and] drew a detailed diagram of the landing site and took pictures and colored photographs."

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