India’s opposition Congress party members during a protest against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani in New Delhi, India. PHOTO: AP
NEW DELHI (AP) – Hundreds of supporters of India’s main opposition party protested yesterday against billionaire Gautam Adani, who was recently indicted in the United States (US) for alleged fraud and bribery, and accused the government of protecting the Indian coal magnate whose companies’ shares have plunged since the charges last week.
Activists belonging to the Congress party demonstrated near Parliament in New Delhi to demand the immediate arrest of Adani Several were detained by police.
Also yesterday, opposition parties chanted “Adani” over and over as Parliament opened.
They called for a joint committee to investigate his companies, which include agriculture, renewable energy, coal and infrastructure. But the parliamentary session was adjourned over the disruptions.
Adani, 62, one of Asia’s richest men, was thrust into the spotlight last week when US prosecutors in New York charged him and seven of his associates with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, alleging that Adani duped investors in a massive solar project in India by concealing that it was being facilitated by bribes.
The indictment outlines an alleged scheme to pay about USD265 million in bribes to government officials in India. The government has not officially commented on the charges, which the Adani group has denied as baseless.
On Saturday, the group’s chief finance officer said the indictment was linked to one contract of Adani Green, its renewable energy arm, that comprised 10 per cent of its business, adding that none of the group’s other companies was accused of wrongdoing.
India’s opposition Congress party members during a protest against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani in New Delhi, India. PHOTO: AP
Rescuers rope off an area around a dead pilot whale on Ruakākā Beach in northland, New Zealand. PHOTO: AP
WELLINGTON (AP) – More than 30 pilot whales that stranded themselves on a beach in New Zealand were safely returned to the ocean after conservation workers and residents helped to refloat them by lifting them on sheets.
Four of the pilot whales died, New Zealand’s conservation agency said.
New Zealand is a whale stranding hotspot and pilot whales are especially prolific stranders.
A team was monitoring Ruakākā Beach near the city of Whangārei in New Zealand’s north yesterday to ensure there were no signs of the whales saved on Sunday stranding again, the Department of Conservation told The Associated Press.
The agency praised as “incredible” the efforts made by hundreds of people to help save the foundering pod.
“It’s amazing to witness the genuine care and compassion people have shown toward these magnificent animals,” Department of Conservation spokesperson Joel Lauterbach said in a statement.
“This response demonstrates the deep connection we all share with our marine environment.”
A Māori cultural ceremony for the three adult whales and one calf that died in the stranding took place yesterday. New Zealand’s Indigenous people consider whales a taonga – a sacred treasure – of cultural significance. New Zealand has recorded more than 5,000 whale strandings since 1840.
Rescuers rope off an area around a dead pilot whale on Ruakākā Beach in northland, New Zealand. PHOTO: AP
People row a canoe at the flooded Mirabel RV Park and Campground after a major storm in California, United States. PHOTO: AP
AP – Another round of wintry weather could complicate travel leading up to the upcoming holiday, according to forecasts across the United States (US), while California and Washington state continue to recover from storm damage and power outages.
In California, where two people were found dead in floodwaters on Saturday, authorities braced for more rain while grappling with flooding and small landslides from a previous storm.
The National Weather Service office in Sacramento, California, issued a winter storm warning for the Sierra Nevada, with heavy snow expected at higher elevations and wind gusts potentially reaching 88 kilometres per hour (kph). Total snowfall of roughly 1.2 metres was forecast, with the heaviest accumulations expected today. The Midwest and Great Lakes regions will see rain and snow and the East Coast will be the most impacted this weekend, forecasters said.
A low pressure system is forecast to bring rain to the Southeast early on Thursday before heading to the Northeast. Areas from Boston to New York could see rain and breezy conditions, with snowfall possible in parts of northern New Hampshire, northern Maine and the Adirondacks. If the system tracks further inland, there could be less snow and more rain in the mountains, forecasters said.
“The system doesn’t look like a powerhouse right now,” meteorologist with the weather service in Massachusetts Hayden Frank said on Sunday. “Basically, this is going to bring rain to the I-95 corridor so travellers should prepare for wet weather. Unless the system trends a lot colder, it looks like rain.”
People row a canoe at the flooded Mirabel RV Park and Campground after a major storm in California, United States. PHOTO: AP
A union ballot drop box at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in the United States. PHOTO: AP
AP – Service workers at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in the United States (US) have gone on strike during a busy week of holiday travel to protest what they said are unliveable wages.
Employees of ABM and Prospect Airport Services cast ballots on Friday to authorise the work stoppage in North Carolina, which a spokesperson said began yesterday morning.
Officials with Service Employees International Union announced the impending strike in a statement early yesterday, saying the workers would demand “an end to poverty wages and respect on the job during the holiday travel season”.
ABM and Prospect Airport Services contract with American Airlines to provide services including cleaning airplane interiors, removing trash and escorting passengers in wheelchairs.
Workers said they previously raised the alarm about their growing inability to afford basic necessities, including food and housing. They described living paycheck to paycheck, unable to cover expenses like car repairs while performing jobs that keep countless planes running on schedule. “We’re on strike today because this is our last resort. We can’t keep living like this,” ABM cabin cleaner Priscilla Hoyle said in a statement. “We’re taking action because our families can’t survive.”
Most of them earn between USD12.50 and USD19 an hour, which is well below the living wage for a single person with no children in the Charlotte area, union officials said.
Charlotte Douglas International Airport officials have said this holiday travel season is expected to be the busiest on record, with an estimated 1.02 million passengers departing the airport.
“Airport service workers make holiday travel possible by keeping airports safe, clean, and running,” the union said. “Despite their critical role in the profits that major corporations enjoy, many airport service workers must work two to three jobs to make ends meet.” ABM said it would take steps to minimise disruptions from any demonstrations.
“At ABM, we appreciate the hard work our team members put in every day to support our clients and help keep spaces clean and people healthy,” the company said in a statement last week. Prospect Airport Services said last week that the company recognises the seriousness of the potential for a strike during the busy holiday travel season.
A union ballot drop box at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in the United States. PHOTO: AP
Defendant Susan Lorincz takes notes during her trial. PHOTO: AP
AP – A white woman in Florida, United States (US) who fatally shot a Black neighbour through her front door during an ongoing dispute over the neighbour’s boisterous children faces sentencing for her manslaughter conviction.
Susan Lorincz, 60, was convicted in August of killing 35-year-old Ajike ‘AJ’ Owens by firing a single shot from her .380-caliber handgun in June 2023. Lorincz faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in state prison because a firearm was used.
The shooting was the culmination of a long-running argument between the two neighbours over Owens’ children playing in a grassy area at both of their houses in Ocala, about 130 kilometres northwest of Orlando.Prosecutors said Owens had come to Lorincz’s home after her children complained that she had thrown roller skates and an umbrella at them, which Lorincz denied. Trial testimony showed Owens, a mother of four young children, was pounding on Lorincz’s door and yelling, leading Lorincz to claim self-defence in shooting her neighbour.
Lorincz told detectives in a videotaped interview that she feared for her life. She also said she had been harassed for most of the three years she lived in the neighbourhood.
“I thought I was in imminent danger,” she said.
But jurors did not agree with her self-defence claim.
Owens’ family pushed for the maximum prison sentence after Lorincz was convicted by an all-white jury.
Defendant Susan Lorincz takes notes during her trial. PHOTO: AP
Lithuanian Emergency Ministry employees work at the site where a DHL cargo plane crashed into a house near Vilnius, Lithuania. PHOTO: AP
AFP – A DHL cargo plane crashed early yesterday near the airport in Lithuania’s capital, killing one person, authorities said as they searched for clues to what caused the tragedy.
“It is premature to associate it with anything or to make any attributions,” State Security Department chief Darius Jauniskis told reporters.
Images from the crash site in the capital Vilnius showed debris from the plane and packages on fire scattered across the residential area cordoned off by the emergency services.
“We cannot rule out the case of terrorism. We have warned that such things are possible.
But we cannot make any attributions or point fingers yet,” Jauniskis said.
According to the Lithuanian police, the plane, flying from the eastern German city of Leipzig, skidded several hundred metres, hitting the residential house which was set on fire, smaller buildings, and a car.Head of the firefighting and rescue department Renatas Pozela said one person from the plane’s four-member crew died in the crash that happened as the plane was due to land in Vilnius.
Head of National Crisis Management Centre Vilmantas Vitkauskas said the residential building was successfully evacuated, with its 12 residents moved to safety.
German logistics company DHL said the cargo aircraft was operated by its partner SwiftAir and had made an “emergency landing” in Lithuania.
“We can confirm that today, at approximately 4.30am CET, a Swiftair aircraft, operated by a service partner on behalf of DHL, performed an emergency landing about one kilometre from VNO Airport (Vilnius, Lithuania) while en route from LEJ Airport (Leipzig, Germany) to VNO Airport,” it said in a statement.
Lithuanian police Chief Arunas Paulauskas said investigators had gone to the hospital to talk to the pilots.
It was not immediately clear what caused the crash.
Lithuanian Emergency Ministry employees work at the site where a DHL cargo plane crashed into a house near Vilnius, Lithuania. PHOTO: AP
ATHENS (AFP) – Eight migrants, six of them minors, died yesterday after a boat sank in the Aegean Sea, the Greek coastguard said.
The coastguard said nearly 40 people had been rescued and a search for survivors was ongoing amid strong winds.
The incident occurred north of the island of Samos, a route frequently chosen by people smugglers. Greece has seen a 25-per-cent increase this year in the number of people fleeing war and poverty, with a 30-per-cent increase alone to Rhodes and the south-east Aegean, according to the Migration Ministry.
Several similar accidents have occurred in past weeks, the last in early November when four people died near the island of Rhodes.
In late October, two people died near the island of Samos. Four more, including two infants, were lost near the island of Kos a few days earlier.
French President of far-right party Rassemblement National parliamentary group Marine Le Pen. PHOTO: AFP
PARIS (AFP) – French far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen yesterday threatened to back a no confidence motion that could topple the government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier in a standoff over the budget, saying after talks both sides were entrenched in their positions.
Months of political tensions since right-winger Barnier became prime minister at the helm of a minority government appointed by President Emmanuel Macron in the wake of this summer’s elections are coming to a head over the budget which has yet to be approved by Parliament.
The opposition on all sides of the spectrum have denounced the budget, prompting Barnier to consider brandishing the weapon of article 49.3 of the constitution which allows a government to force through legislation without a vote in Parliament.
However, that could prompt Le Pen’s far right National Rally (RN) to team up in an unholy alliance with the left-wing bloc in Parliament and find enough numbers to topple the government in a confidence vote.
Le Pen entered the Matignon residence of the French premier for the breakfast meeting and was followed later in the afternoon by hard left France Unbowed (LFI) parliamentary party leader Mathilde Panot as Barnier seeks to hear voices across the board.
“My position has not changed. No more, it seems, than that (the position) of the prime minister has changed,” Le Pen said after meeting Barnier, describing him as “at the same time courteous but also entrenched in his positions”.
Asked if the RN would back a no confidence motion, she replied, “Of course.”
French President of far-right party Rassemblement National parliamentary group Marine Le Pen. PHOTO: AFP
DUBLIN (AFP) – Ireland’s election race is set for a tight finish as frontrunner the centre-right Fine Gael led by Prime Minister Simon Harris has slumped in polls before Friday’s vote.
Fine Gael fell by six per cent, according to an Irish Times/Ipsos poll published yesterday, while a weekend poll by the Sunday Independent indicated a four-per-cent drop.
The party, which has been in office since 2010, entered the campaign which began on November 6 widely tipped for a smooth return to power along with its outgoing coalition partners Fianna Fail, also from the centre-right. But Fine Gael’s campaign has been hindered by missteps and gaffes.
Social media savvy Harris, who took over from predecessor Leo Varadkar as leader last April and oversaw a robust recovery in his party’s ratings, turned his back on a disability sector worker.
The clip has been seen more than 2.5 million times. Harris issued an apology to the worker the following day. According to yesterday’s poll, Fine Gael have slumped to third place (19 per cent) behind Fianna Fail (21 per cent) led by Micheal Martin and the leftist-nationalist Sinn Fein (20 per cent). The pro-Irish unity Sinn Fein won the largest vote share at the last election in 2020 and were seen as the most likely winner in 2024 until a plunge in support this year, mainly over its stance on immigration.
Tensions are running high over huge increases in asylum applications, exacerbating existing tensions about a lack of affordable housing.
Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Fein’s leader and potentially Ireland’s first ever female prime minister, has pledged to initiate a referendum on Irish unification by 2030 if she wins.
Kendrick Lamar during a performance at Coachella Music & Arts Festival. PHOTO: DAVE FREE & AP
AP – With his surprise-dropped GNX, Kendrick Lamar roars from zero to 60 faster than a turbocharged ‘87 Buick, faster than you can shout “Mustaaaaard”. And waaaaay faster than you can decode the dense centerpiece Reincarnated.
Keeping the same energy of his landmark Pop Out concert five months ago, Lamar surrounds himself with up-and-coming Los Angeles artistes – from AzChike to Peysoh – and raps over thumping New West Coast soundscapes shaped by his longtime producer Sounwave, along with Jack Antonoff and a garageful of other beat mechanics.
He’s once again “possessed by a spirit”, sprinkling 2Pac, Biggie and Nas references throughout and maintaining a me-against-the-world antipathy that includes but extends well beyond a certain Canadian: “I just strangled me a GOAT” and “now it’s plural”.
Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Andrew Schulz, and even Fox’s Super Bowl broadcast can’t escape K-Dot’s chaotic crosshairs. Here’s hoping the chorus of “tv off” – an urgent call to “turn this TV off” repeated eight times – confuses the masses during his New Orleans halftime show in February.
This is Lamar leaning into the same creativity-juicing pride, self-righteous anger and supreme confidence that fueled the Grammy-nominated Not Like Us and won his Drake feud: “I kill ‘em all before I let ‘em kill my joy.”
And yet, as with his first-ever hit Swimming Pools (Drank), even the most club-ready braggadocio songs – and there are plenty, including the massive “squabble up” and synth-stabbed Mustard production “hey now” – are slapped with a caution sticker.
Introspection is baked into Lamar’s art. In “man at the garden”, he’s surveying his kingdom and glory and declares that while “I deserve it all,” “dangerously / nothing changed with me / still got pain in me.”
At age 37, Lamar remains in peak form (that breath control!) and stands alone in the rap world as a star who bridges generations without chasing trends. He generates his own gravity in the hip-hop universe. Pulling samples from the early ‘80s – Debbie Deb, Luther Vandross, Whodini – he’s able to switch cadences and lyrical perspectives mid-song without ever losing the listener.
Album closer gloria, one of two tracks featuring former TDE labelmate SZA, is a glorious celebration of the pain and power of writing. In the vein of Common’s I Used to Love H.E.R. or Nas’ I Gave You Power, Lamar’s love story details a “complicated relationship” that listeners at first may think is about his longtime partner Whitney Alford, but turns out to be dedicated to his pen.
While carefully structured, GNX feels a bit more scattershot than Lamar’s traditionally concept-heavy studio albums. And there are hints that this collection of 12 songs is more of a Part 1 or mixtape-type prelude to something more formal: The brief music video announcing the album features a snippet of a song that doesn’t even appear on GNX.
Whatever comes next, the Pulitzer Prize winner has written another thrilling chapter in what remains the most fascinating longform story in hip-hop: an ambitious and searingly talented poet from Compton working through his – and the world’s – contradictions on the biggest stage, forever discomforted by his crown.
Kendrick Lamar’s ‘GNX’ album cover. PHOTO: DAVE FREE & APKendrick Lamar during a performance at Coachella Music & Arts Festival. PHOTO: DAVE FREE & AP
