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A Gazette notification has been issued establishing an 18 member Presidential Task Force to plan and implement the “Clean Sri Lanka” Programme, a key feature in President’s policy statement. They have been tasked with preparing a plan, guide, implement, review the progress, and complete the “Clean Sri Lanka” programme within a given time frame aiming to achieve the objectives of elevating society to a more advanced status through a social, environmental and ethical awakening. Create an organisational structure to facilitate the implementation of this programme from the national level to rural level, obtain the subject knowledge and contribution of scholars, professionals, experts and representatives of institutions relating to the subject areas covered by the “Clean Sri Lanka” Programme, prepare a structure to engage stakeholders such as government and semi government sectors, private sector, research institutions, civil society organisations, non-governmental organisations, international organisations and development practitioners, consultancy and professional organisations, community and citizen organisations, mass media and communication institutions, financial institutions, religious organisations, technology providers and inventors, Sri Lankan diaspora in this programme. Raising funds for the “Clean Sri Lanka” Fund and provide the necessary instructions and guidance to manage the “Clean Sri Lanka” Fund as required. Identify programmes implemented in concurrence with this programme by various stakeholders such as government institutions, private sector, international organisations and institutions, non-governmental organisations and align them with the “Clean Sri Lanka” Programme. Identify and formulate legal provisions required to ensure the sustainability of the outcomes of this programme and establish an institutional framework to which the responsibility for enforcing such laws and rules in the long term is conferred upon. Leverage digitalisation to plan, guide, implement, review the progress and sustainably continue this programme. ix. Develop and implement a multi-mode communication strategy to positively influence and engage all stakeholders. The Task Force is headed by Secretary to the President Dr.N.S. Kumanayake with Senior Additional Secretary to the President G.M.R.D.Aponsu acting as the Convener and Secretary. The other members are, Commanders of the Army, Navy and the Air Force, Acting Inspector General Priyantha Weerasuriya, Urban Development Authority Chairman, Kumudu Lal De Silva, I. S. Jayaratna, Gihan De Silva, Sandya Salgado, Dr. Gamini Batuwitage, Dr. Anuruddha Gamage, Dilruk Wanasinghe, Deepal Sooriyaarachchi, Sisira Amarabandu, Krishantha Cooray, Jayathu Perera, Ruwan Weerasooriya and Dayan Karunarathna. The said Presidential Task Force should submit reports to the President from time to time, in respect of the execution of the aforesaid tasks. The “Clean Sri Lanka” initiative, a nationwide programme to enhance cleanliness and environmental responsibility. The program focuses on preserving natural beauty, cleaning public spaces, and protecting coastal areas. The programme is designed to foster the social, environmental, and ethical awakening of the country while strengthening environmental, economic and social sustainability. It also aims to enhance the efficiency of state machinery to ensure the successful realization of its objectives.First television broadcast in Portugal with 5G Stand Alone technologyHe's been helping Donald Trump’s most contentious Cabinet picks try to win confirmation in the Senate.

THE HAGUE (AP) — The world’s top war-crimes court issued arrest warrants Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and Hamas’ military chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity in connection with the 13-month war in Gaza. The warrants said there was reason to believe Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid and have intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza — charges Israeli officials deny. The action by the International Criminal Court came as the death toll from Israel’s campaign in Gaza passed 44,000 people, according to local health authorities, who say more than half of those killed were women and children. Their count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Experts say hunger has become widespread across Gaza and may have reached famine levels in the north of the territory, which is under siege by Israeli troops. Israel says it has been working hard to improve entry of aid, though the trickle of supplies into Gaza remains near the lowest levels of the war. Netanyahu condemned the warrant against him, saying Israel “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions” by the court. In a statement released by his office, he said: “There is nothing more just than the war that Israel has been waging in Gaza.” Gallant, in a statement, said the decision "sets a dangerous precedent against the right to self-defense and moral warfare and encourages murderous terrorism.” The warrant marked the first time that a sitting leader of a major Western ally has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by a global court of justice. The decision turns Netanyahu and the others into internationally wanted suspects, putting them at risk of arrest when they travel abroad and potentially further isolating them . Israel and its top ally, the United States, are not members of the court. But others of Israel's allies, including some of its close European friends, are put in an awkward position. Several, including France, welcomed the court's decision and signaled they might arrest Netanyahu if he visited. The move “represents the most dramatic step yet in the court’s involvement in the conflict between Israel and Hamas," said Anthony Dworkin, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Israeli leaders, politicians and officials across the spectrum denounced the warrants and the ICC. The new defense minister, Israel Katz, who replaced Gallant earlier this month, said Thursday’s decision is “a moral disgrace, entirely tainted by antisemitism, and drags the international judicial system to an unprecedented low.” Human rights groups applauded the move. The warrants against both sides “break through the perception that certain individuals are beyond the reach of the law,” the associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, Balkees Jarrah, said in a statement. The decision came six months after ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan requested the warrants. The court issued a warrant for Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas’ armed wing, over the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that triggered Israel’s offensive in Gaza. It said it found reasonable grounds to believe Deif was involved in murder, rape, torture and the taking of hostages amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity. In the Hamas-led attack, militants stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and taking some 250 others hostage. Around 100 Israelis remain captive in Gaza, around a third of them believed to be dead. Khan withdrew requests for warrants for two other senior Hamas figures, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh , who have both since been killed. Israel says it also killed Deif in an airstrike, but Hamas has never confirmed his death. The warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant were issued by a three-judge panel in a unanimous decision. The panel said there were reasonable grounds to believe that both men bear responsibility for the war crime of starvation and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts. The judges said the lack of food, water, electricity, fuel and specific medical supplies created conditions “calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza,” including the deaths of children due to malnutrition and dehydration. They also found that by preventing hospital supplies and medicine from getting into Gaza, doctors were forced to operate, including performing amputations, without anesthesia or with unsafe means of sedation that led to “great suffering.” Israeli diplomatic officials said the government is lobbying the international community to speak out against the warrants and is considering an appeal to the court. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal decision on how the government will proceed. Despite the warrants, none of the suspects is likely to face judges in The Hague anytime soon. Member countries are required to detain suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil, but the court has no way to enforce that. For example, Russian President Vladimir Putin, wanted on an ICC warrant for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, recently visited Mongolia, a member state in the court but also a Russian ally. He was not arrested. Still, the threat of arrest now complicates any travel abroad by Netanyahu and Gallant. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the warrants are binding on all 27 members countries of the European Union. France signaled it could arrest Netanyahu if he came to its territory. Foreign Ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine called it a “complex legal issue” but said France supports the court’s actions. “Combating impunity is our priority,” he said. “Our response will align with these principles.” Hamas in a statement welcomed the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant but made no mention of the one against Deif. Israel’s opposition leaders fiercely criticized the ICC’s move. Benny Gantz, a retired general and political rival to Netanyahu, said it showed “moral blindness” and was a “shameful stain of historic proportion that will never be forgotten.” Israel’s campaign has caused heavy destruction across Gaza and driven almost the entire population of 2.3 million people from their homes, leaving most dependent on aid to survive. Two days after Hamas’ attack on southern Israel, Gallant announced a total seal on Gaza, vowing not to let in food, fuel or other supplies. Under U.S. pressure, Israel began allowing a trickle of humanitarian aid to enter a few weeks later. Israel now says it puts no limit on the supplies permitted into Gaza, and it blames the U.N. distribution system. But Israel's official figures show the amount of aid it has let in has plunged since the beginning of October. The U.N has blamed Israeli military restrictions, along with widespread lawlessness that has led to theft of aid shipments. The case at the ICC is separate from another legal battle Israel is waging at the top U.N. court, the International Court of Justice, in which South Africa accuses Israel of genocide , an allegation Israeli leaders staunchly deny. Lawyers for Israel argued in court that the war in Gaza was a legitimate defense of its people and that it was Hamas militants who were guilty of genocide. Associated Press journalists Raf Casert in Brussels, Mike Corder in The Hague and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

MOORHEAD — Minnesota State Community and Technical College opened its new health sciences simulation center Friday morning on the Moorhead campus. According to a release from the college, the 4,167 square-foot center is "the first of its kind in the region" and features four hospital rooms, an emergency/surgery room, a long-term care/in-home care room, debriefing rooms and talking mannequins that can help students practice skills like needle and catheter insertion. ADVERTISEMENT According to M State President Carrie Brimhall, the center "mirrors" real interactions students would have in health care settings. "It's exactly what the students will be walking into when they leave M State and go into a career field," she told The Forum. The center is designed to replicate lifelike situations and bring together students in various health care and emergency services programs, including nursing, phlebotomy, radiologic technology, criminal justice and more, the release said. The broad range of roles is designed to help students understand how they all interact with one another. "It's beyond the person, the patient. It also involves family, law enforcement, child protection, other people come into the mix. Our students need to be able to respond in a high-pressure or conflict situation," Brimhall said. The facility's design started during the COVID pandemic in response to student's desire to have more "real-world experiences and as many hands-on opportunities to learn as possible in a safe and controlled environment," Brimhall said. The four hospital rooms allow for multiple simulations to take place at once, she said. The campus previously only had one simulation room. Brimhall said instructors in a control room can speak for the mannequins to provide prompts and symptoms for students to treat. The Moorhead center is part of a larger project to update health care simulation equipment on all four of M State's campuses. Brimhall anticipates bringing students from across M State's footprint to Moorhead to participate in full-day simulations. She also hopes to have high school students visit the facility. ADVERTISEMENT In addition to Moorhead, M State has campuses in Fergus Falls, Detroit Lakes and Wadena. M State saw an 18% increase in health care enrollment this fall, Brimhall said. The college's health care programs have a total of 1,157 health care students, accounting for 35% of the system's total students. "When we put things like this high-end, unique and really one-of-a-kind opportunity in campuses for two-year college students, I think it really elevates the reputation of the work that we do," Brimhall said.(TNS) — At Wednesday's meeting, the USD 383 school board heard four technology practices schools can put in place or reinforce for students. The discussion follows a recommendation by The Blue Ribbon Task Force, which is a state committee wants Kansas schools to limit screen time for students. "We came up with four areas we thought were really low-hanging fruit we could go after fairly quickly," IT director Mike Ribble said. The board didn't vote on the matter but discussed possible plans. The district already has policies limiting student screen time and making their technology use safer. One step toward this is the use of filtering services and not allowing the younger elementary school students to take iPads home. "We have in the past, grades K through three, we did not allow any devices to go home," Ribble said. "They've always stayed in the classroom. Four, five, after COVID, we decided to go ahead and allow devices to go home, fourth all the way through 12th." Going forward, the task force recommended pulling back the take-home option for fourth and fifth grades. This will mean no take-home fee for the iPads for kindergarten through fifth grade. "A little less revenue, but overall I think it makes sense," Ribble said. Ribble said one of the main parental concerns was access to the devices at home. One consideration, so students don't stay up playing on the school-issued devices, is to lock them at a certain time. That time has yet to be determined. "Either 10:30 p.m. until 6 a.m., they will become basically a big clock," Ribble said. "They're not going to get to their device and watch Youtube videos at 2 a.m. Same thing with high school. We would then extend it, probably until 12:30 a.m. to that 6 a.m. sort of time frame." The devices also have Internet filtering services. The district's current service is ContentKeeper. The IT department will make changes to the filter, to block the entertainment category in its source code. "The big offender seems to be Youtube," Ribble said. "With the restricted mode, we've also checked the box of Entertainment to block because everything that's coded into Youtube has a name code that it goes with." Ribble said the downside to this is that good educational videos on Youtube also are filtered out. "There are good things that are in entertainment," Ribble said. "We did find out in our test, because we are testing this at the middle schools right now, and we found in our STEM classrooms four videos that were in entertainment. We did unblock them, and they are available to those STEM classes." The last suggested practice is communication with parents. The district started a device check-in system in spring 2024. When the students check in their devices, the school notifies the parents with an email to confirm. "We're thinking about not just that but also on the check-out process," Ribble said, "Telling them we check these things but also providing links and providing resources like the iPad handbook." Andrea Tiede, the director of teaching and learning, said they are gathering community feedback with a survey, as a chance for public feedback. Board members expressed willingness to adopt the recommendations but said the issue of technology is complex. No decisions were made at this meeting. "This whole topic, this whole issue, the answer that's right for kindergarteners, is that the right answer for 12th graders?" board member Karla Hagemeister said. "With so many of our issues and so many of the things that we talk about, if they were easy they'd be done." The opinions from the community are expected to vary based on the ages of the children in each household. "It's also a snapshot in a moment of time," Hagemeister said. "Our relationship with technology has changed over the years and, it will continue to change."

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Barclays PLC grew its position in CVR Energy, Inc. ( NYSE:CVI – Free Report ) by 214.3% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 78,030 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock after buying an additional 53,203 shares during the period. Barclays PLC’s holdings in CVR Energy were worth $1,797,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of CVR Energy by 14.6% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 639,138 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $14,719,000 after acquiring an additional 81,590 shares during the period. Royce & Associates LP lifted its stake in shares of CVR Energy by 58.1% in the 3rd quarter. Royce & Associates LP now owns 101,043 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $2,327,000 after acquiring an additional 37,130 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of CVR Energy by 18.1% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,075,058 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $47,789,000 after acquiring an additional 317,475 shares during the period. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of CVR Energy in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $5,335,000. Finally, Advisors Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of CVR Energy by 37.2% in the 3rd quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 352,075 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $8,108,000 after acquiring an additional 95,371 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 98.88% of the company’s stock. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. StockNews.com lowered shares of CVR Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Saturday, December 14th. Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. lowered shares of CVR Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Monday, September 9th. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their target price on shares of CVR Energy from $24.00 to $21.00 and set a “sell” rating for the company in a report on Friday, December 6th. Mizuho raised their target price on shares of CVR Energy from $18.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Scotiabank reduced their target price on shares of CVR Energy from $25.00 to $21.00 and set a “sector underperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, October 10th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and two have issued a hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Reduce” and an average target price of $23.00. CVR Energy Stock Performance Shares of CVR Energy stock opened at $18.47 on Friday. CVR Energy, Inc. has a 12 month low of $15.60 and a 12 month high of $38.07. The company has a quick ratio of 0.86, a current ratio of 1.33 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.84. The stock has a market cap of $1.86 billion, a PE ratio of 26.77 and a beta of 1.57. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $19.07 and a 200-day simple moving average of $22.95. CVR Energy ( NYSE:CVI – Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The oil and gas company reported ($0.50) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.09) by ($0.41). The business had revenue of $1.83 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.91 billion. CVR Energy had a return on equity of 2.88% and a net margin of 0.89%. The company’s revenue was down 27.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.89 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that CVR Energy, Inc. will post -0.12 EPS for the current fiscal year. About CVR Energy ( Free Report ) CVR Energy, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the petroleum refining and marketing, and nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing activities in the United States. It operates in two segments, Petroleum and Nitrogen Fertilizer. The Petroleum segment refines and supplies gasoline, crude oil, distillate, diesel fuel, and other refined products. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CVI? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for CVR Energy, Inc. ( NYSE:CVI – Free Report ). Receive News & Ratings for CVR Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for CVR Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .By DAVID BAUDER Time magazine gave Donald Trump something it has never done for a Person of the Year designee: a lengthy fact-check of claims he made in an accompanying interview. Related Articles National Politics | Trump’s lawyers rebuff DA’s idea for upholding his hush money conviction, calling it ‘absurd’ National Politics | Trump wants to turn the clock on daylight saving time National Politics | Ruling by a conservative Supreme Court could help blue states resist Trump policies National Politics | A nonprofit leader, a social worker: Here are the stories of the people on Biden’s clemency list National Politics | Nancy Pelosi hospitalized after she ‘sustained an injury’ on official trip to Luxembourg The fact-check accompanies a transcript of what the president-elect told the newsmagazine’s journalists. Described as a “12 minute read,” it calls into question 15 separate statements that Trump made. It was the second time Trump earned the Time accolade; he also won in 2016, the first year he was elected president. Time editors said it wasn’t a particularly hard choice over other finalists Kamala Harris, Elon Musk, Benjamin Netanyahu and Kate Middleton. Time said Friday that no other Person of the Year has been fact-checked in the near-century that the magazine has annually written about the figure that has had the greatest impact on the news. But it has done the same for past interviews with the likes of Joe Biden, Netanyahu and Trump. Such corrections have been a sticking point for Trump and his team in the past, most notably when ABC News did it during his only debate with Democrat Kamala Harris this fall. There was no immediate response to a request for comment on Friday. In the piece, Time called into question statements Trump made about border security, autism and the size of a crowd at one of his rallies. When the president-elect talked about the “massive” mandate he had received from voters, Time pointed out that former President Barack Obama won more electoral votes the two times he had run for president. The magazine also questioned Trump’s claim that he would do interviews with anyone who asked during the campaign, if he had the time. The candidate rejected a request to speak to CBS’ “60 Minutes,” the magazine said. “In the final months of his campaign, Trump prioritized interviews with podcasts over mainstream media,” reporters Simmone Shah and Leslie Dickstein wrote. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.ALL-NEW 2025 KIA K4 EARNS 2024 IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK AWARDNikolas Lemmel says his online reputation firm Maximatic Media were called in by a London restaurant - who do not wish to be named - when they found their business targeted by online gangsters. He claims a shell-shocked London restaurant owner woke to find a barrage of one-star reviews had dragged her Google rating from 4.9 to 2.3 virtually overnight. Nikolas says the scathing reviews accused the independent eatery as being racist, giving guests food poisoning and offering all-round poor service. The owner then received an anonymous email from the review-bombing mafia to claim responsibility and demand £10,000 in cryptocurrency Bitcoin. He explains the attackers were using AI-powered bot farms across the world to dupe Google into thinking they were legitimate customers writing reviews from London on a smartphone. Maximatic Media worked with Google to remove the fake reviews and built a digital strategy that encouraged loyal customers to write positive ones. It's claimed they restored the restaurant's Google profile to a 4.8-star rating within a month and the establishment hasn't been contacted by the gang since. Google claim they use a combination of technology, expert analysts, and community reports to tackle fraudulent content and insist perpetrators can face account suspension and even legal action. Nikolas says he's witnessing a scary rise in automated attacks that put livelihoods in limbo. However he warned there isn't much you can do to stop this kind of attack and internet users should pray it doesn't happen to them. Nikolas said: “Usually we see competitors attempting to decrease the standing of a business within the eyes of a local customer base but this was an outside party. They were trying to extort money to remove these reviews. “They were like a review-bombing mafia. They were using bot farms to mask the IP address of the accounts and emulate a mobile device that was in the area of the restaurant. Usually if someone was to leave a review from a different country then it would be easy to get it removed but in this case it was a lot more difficult. She was extremely thankful that we got all of those reviews down and she didn't succumb to the extortion attempt. “There weren't many precautions she could have taken to stop the review-bombing mafia from demolishing her rating. There isn't much you can do other than pray you don't become a victim of this sort of attempt. It's scary. Unless your business is within the IT field this is above a lot of people's pay grades and that's why it's hard to work out where it's coming from or how to stop it. It's important people reach out to specialists in these sorts of situations because it's a tailored approach depending on what's happening.” If you see a business get hundreds of reviews within seconds then that's a very easy tell-tale sign that it's probably being targeted by an automated attack. Maximatic Media was founded in 2020 to help small businesses manage their online reputation through targeted PR strategies. Nikolas says they've recently ramped up their crisis-management work to combat online villains abusing modern technology to target businesses. He says the AI mafia continued to flood the restaurant with negative reviews while they worked with Google to remove them but over time they decreased. The owner was encouraged to post a statement on social media outlining what had happened and to contact loyal customers with incentives to support her during the difficult time. New positive reviews helped turn the tide against the attackers and restore the restaurant's reputation for the grateful owner. Nikolas believes many platforms and websites don't have the capabilities to deal with complex AI attacks yet and fears the attacks are becoming more complex. Nikolas said: “We've seen a rise of these sorts of situations where businesses are repeatedly facing these risks of having their livelihoods put into this limbo zone. It is something many websites and platforms are working on making improvements in but sadly the attacks are also becoming increasingly complex and advanced too so it's a never-ending game of catch-up.” A spokesperson for Google said: Our policies clearly state reviews must be based on real experiences and information, and we use a combination of technology, expert analysts, and community reports to monitor for fraudulent content. When we find scammers trying to mislead people, we take action ranging from content removal to account suspension and even litigation. You can find out more at the Maximatic Media website .