Senate candidate Tim Ryan supports teachers in Columbus, Ohio, going on strike for the first few days of the school year after not being able to reach an agreement with the school board over "learning conditions."
According to The Columbus Education Association (CEA) website, the union filed a notice of intent to strike earlier this month, threatening to not show up to school until they could reach an agreement on their contract with the school board. Democrat Senate candidate Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio., supports the teacher's decision to strike, telling Fox News Digital, "With our kids losing so much ground over the last few years, it’s clear we need them back in the classroom – but that should not come at the expense of their health and safety with no air conditioning, leaky buildings and overcrowding." "I support our teachers standing up for the well-being of their students and urge Columbus City Schools to come back to the bargaining table," Ryan concluded. PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICTS IMPLEMENTING COVID RESTRICTIONS MEET FEROCIOUS COMMUNITY PUSHBACK
A press release from the association stated the reasons for the strike: "At issue is disagreement over learning conditions such as smaller class sizes, full-time Art, Music, and P.E. teachers at the elementary level, and functional heating and air-conditioning in classrooms, as well as adequate planning time, a cap on the number of class periods during the school day, outsourcing positions to private, for-profit corporations from outside the community, and recruiting and retaining the best educators for Columbus students." WISCONSIN SCHOOL BOARD VOTES TO BAN PRIDE, BLM FLAGS FROM CLASSROOMS CEA represents around 4,500 teachers, nurses, psychologists, and several other education professionals in the school district. The teachers plan on remaining on strike until an agreement with the school board is made.
CEA represents around 4,500 teachers, nurses, psychologists, and several other education professionals in the school district. (Reuters/Jim Vondruska)
"CEA has consistently maintained that we are fighting not just for CEA members, but for our students and community. That is why CEA will continue that fight until a fair agreement is reached for the schools Columbus Students Deserve," spokesperson for CEA Regina Fuentes wrote in the release.
GOP nominee JD Vance is the Trump-backed candidate competing against Rep. Tim Ryan for the open Senate seat. (LM Otero/AP )
With no incumbents in the Ohio Senate race, Ryan, who is currently representing Ohio's 13th Congressional District, is running for Senate against Trump-endorsed GOP nominee JD Vance.
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Four people were killed and more than a dozen others injured Thursday by early-morning Russian bombardments on the northeast Ukrainian region of Kharkiv, the governor said.
The attacks come hours ahead of a meeting between the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UN chief Antonio Guterres on the other side of the country and after Russian attacks on Kharkiv a day early left at least seven dead.
Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv has been subjected to persistent Russian shelling since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in late February.
The head of the Kharkiv region Oleh Synehubov said Moscow's forces had launched eight missiles from Russian territory at around 04:30 a.m. local time (01:30 GMT) striking western and northern districts of the city.
In the southern Slobidskyi district, "one of the missiles hit a four-story dormitory. The building is partially destroyed. Preliminarily, two people died, 18 got injured, including two children. The detailed information is being clarified," Synegubov said in a statement on social media.
AFP journalists on the scene saw the smoldering remains of several burned-out buildings and twisted wreckage of destroyed vehicles nearby.
Separately, he said, Russian missile attacks on the town of Krasnograd around 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Kharkiv had destroyed several residential buildings in strikes that left two civilians dead and two injured, including a 12-year-old.
Russian forces initially tried to capture Kharkiv early in their assault on Ukraine but were pushed back and have been shelling mostly northern residential districts of the city since.
Moscow claims Ukraine is storing military equipment near civilian infrastructure, a claim Ukraine denies.
The Turkish leader and Guterres brokered a grain export deal between Moscow and Kyiv, allowing grain to be exported from Ukraine's blockaded Black Sea ports.
Ukraine’s president has condemned a Russian strike that the region’s governor said killed at least six people and wounded 16 in Ukraine’s Kharkiv on August 17 as “despicable and cynical”.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said a block of flats was “totally destroyed” in the attack, which he said “had no justification and shows the powerlessness of the aggressor”.
“We will not forgive, we will take revenge”, the president said on the Telegram app.
The strike started a fire in a block of flats in the northeastern city, mayor Igor Terekhov said on Telegram.
He earlier gave a toll of three dead and ten wounded, but regional governor Oleg Synegubov said the numbers had risen.
“Unfortunately the number of deaths and injuries following the bombardment... has increased: six people died and 16 were wounded,” Mr. Synegubov said on Telegram.
Kharkiv was besieged in the first days of the invasion in February.
But Russian troops - backed by massive artillery fire and missile strikes - have not been able to take control of Ukraine’s second city.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the region, authorities say.
On August 15, Russian shelling in the city killed at least one person and injured six more, senior police official Sergiy Bolvinov said on Facebook.
The bulk of Russia’s offensive is now focussed on southern and eastern Ukraine.
DHAKA: Nearly 150,000 workers at more than 200 Bangladeshi tea plantations went on strike Saturday to demand a 150 percent rise to their dollar-a-day wages, which researchers say are among the lowest in the world.
Most tea workers in the overwhelmingly Muslim country are low-caste Hindus, the descendants of labourers brought to the plantations by colonial-era British planters.
The minimum wage for a tea plantation worker in the country is 120 taka a day — about $1.25 at official rates, but only just over a dollar on the free market.
One worker said that was barely enough to buy food, let alone other necessities.
Unions are demanding an increase to 300 taka a day, with inflation rising and the currency depreciating, and said that workers in the country’s 232 tea gardens began a full-scale strike on Saturday, after four days of two-hour stoppages.
“Nearly 150,000 tea workers have joined the strike today,” said Sitaram Bin, a committee member of the Bangladesh Tea Workers’ Union.
“No tea worker will pluck tea leaves or work in the leaf processing plants as long as the authority doesn’t pay heed to our demands,” he told AFP.
Plantation owners have offered an increase of 14 taka a day, after an 18-taka rise last year and M. Shah Alom, chairman of the Bangladesh Tea Association, said operators were “going through difficult times with profit declining in recent times”.
“The cost of production is increasing. Our expenses have increased as the price of gas, fertiliser and diesel have gone up,” he told AFP.
Researchers say tea workers — who live in some of the country’s most remote areas — have been systematically exploited by the industry for decades.
“Tea workers are like modern-day slaves,” said Philip Gain, director of the Society for Environment and Human Development, a research group, who has written books on tea workers.
“The plantation owners have hijacked the minimum wage authorities and kept the wages some of the lowest in the world.”
Four more ships loaded with grain set off from Ukrainian ports on Sunday, as Moscow and Kyiv blamed each other for a new strike at a Russian-occupied nuclear plant.
Amnesty International, meanwhile, said it deeply regretted the "distress and anger" caused after it alleged Ukrainian forces were flouting international law by exposing civilians to Russian fire. But it stands by its controversial report.
Kyiv's infrastructure ministry wrote on Telegram that a second convoy of Ukrainian supplies had just left, three from Chornomorsk and one from Odesa.
The Mustafa Necati, the Star Helena, the Glory and the Riva Wind were carrying "around 170,000 tons of agriculture-related merchandise," it said.
Moscow and Kyiv traded accusations Sunday over who bombed the Zaporizhzhia nuclear site in southern Ukraine.
Europe's largest atomic power complex has been under Russian control since the early days of the Feb. 24 invasion.
And as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed U.S. actress Jessica Chastain to Ukraine, Moscow celebrated the re-election of a former senior Russian politician to the world body governing chess.
Recent fighting at the plant has prompted UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to warn of "the very real risk of a nuclear disaster."
Russia's occupying authorities in the town of Enerhodar, where the plant is located, said the Ukrainian army overnight "carried out a strike with a cluster bomb fired from an Uragan multiple rocket launcher."
The projectiles fell "within 400 meters of a working reactor" and in a "zone storing used nuclear fuel," Russia's state news agency TASS reported.
Ukraine's state nuclear energy company Enerhoatom however said the "Russian occupiers once again fired rockets" at the nuclear power plant in its host town, Enerhodar. One worker there had been hospitalized with shrapnel wounds, it added.
AFP was not able to confirm the allegations from an independent source.
On Saturday, Enerhoatom had already said parts of the facility had been "seriously damaged" by military strikes the previous day, forcing the shutdown of one of its reactors.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi warned Saturday: "Any military firepower directed at or from the facility would amount to playing with fire, with potentially catastrophic consequences."
Zelensky in his nightly address Sunday, called for a "principled response" from the international community.
Evoking the possibility that the plant was hit causing the release of a toxic cloud, he added: No-one will stop the wind that will spread the radioactive contamination."
Amnesty International sparked outrage in Ukraine with a report Thursday accusing the military of endangering civilians by establishing bases in schools and hospitals, and launching counter-attacks from heavily populated areas.
The head of their Ukraine bureau resigned over the report, accusing Amnesty of becoming "a tool of Russian propaganda."
On Sunday, the rights group said that while it stood by its finding, "nothing we documented Ukrainian forces doing in any way justifies Russian violations."
The renewed shipments of Ukrainian grain to help ease global food shortages and bring down prices nevertheless offer a small glimmer of hope as the war enters its sixth month.
Ukraine, one of the world's largest grain exporters, had been forced to halt almost all deliveries in the wake of Russia's invasion.
That sent global food prices soaring, making imports prohibitively expensive for some of the world's poorest nations.
A bulk carrier arrived in Chornomorsk on Saturday to be loaded with grain for the first time since Moscow's invasion.
The departure Sunday of the four other vessels follows several others last week under a deal brokered with the help of Turkey.
In Rome on Sunday, Pope Francis welcomed the resumption of grain exports as "a sign of hope" that showed dialogue was possible to end the war.
"I sincerely hope that, following this path, we can put an end to the fighting and arrive at a just and lasting peace."
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky posted pictures on Telegram on Sunday of a meeting with Oscar-winning actress Jessica Chastain.
Underlining the value of visits from famous people, he wrote: "Thanks to this, the world will hear, know and understand the truth about what is happening in our country even more."
Earlier Sunday, Moscow celebrated a diplomatic victory of its own with the re-election of Russia's Arkady Dvorkovich to the helm of the international chess body FIDE.
Dvorkovich, a former deputy premier under Russian President Vladimir Putin, comfortably saw off a challenge from Ukrainian grandmaster Andrii Baryshpolets who had accused him of being part of Moscow's "war machine."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called it "clearly very good news and a very significant victory," Russia's TASS news agency reported.
Fast News
Sunday, August 7, 2022
Zelenskyy denounces Russia's 'terror' after damage to nuclear plant
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of using the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "for terror" after the operator of the facility reported major damage at the site.
Energoatom, operator of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the south of the country, said that parts of the facility had been "seriously damaged" by military strikes and one of its reactors was forced to shut down.
Kiev and Moscow have blamed each other for the attacks on the plant, Europe's largest atomic power complex.
Zelenskyy, in his nightly address, once again accused Moscow of terrorism, saying, "Russian terrorists became the first in the world to use the power plant... for terror."
For live updates from Saturday (August 6), click here
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said Monday evening that the U.S. conducted a drone strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan, a revelation expected to degrade the terror group's ability to operate.
"He carved a trail of murder and violence against American citizens, American servicemembers, American diplomats and American interests," Biden said of the pre-dawn precision strike that killed al-Zawahiri.
"We made it clear again tonight that no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide if you are a threat to our people the United States will find you and take you out," Biden added.
Two people briefed on the strike confirmed to NBC News that the strike that killed al-Zawahiri was conducted by the CIA.
A senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to share details of the strike, said U.S. intelligence analysts identified al-Zawahiri's location earlier this year.
The official said the U.S. watched al-Zawahiri's movements for months and determined that he was living in a safe house in Kabul with his family.
"We identified al-Zawahiri on multiple occasions for sustained periods of time on the balcony where he was ultimately struck," the official said.
"Al-Zawahiri's family members were present in other parts of the safe house at the time of the strike and were purposely not targeted and were unarmed. We have no indication that civilians were harmed in this strike," the official added.
The official said Biden received his final intelligence briefing on the matter on July 25 before approving the strike which involved an unmanned aerial vehicle and two Hellfire missiles.
Al-Zawahiri, 71, a physician and founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad before ascending to the top ranks in the al-Qaeda network, was one of the architects behind the devastating Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
In the weeks that followed the Sept. 11 attacks, the Taliban provided sanctuary to al-Qaeda while America mobilized for what would become its longest war.
Al-Zawahiri succeeded Osama bin Laden as the head of al-Qaeda in 2011.
Al-Zawahiri was previously indicted by the U.S. government for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.
The State Department had previously offered a reward of up to $25 million for information leading to his apprehension.
Sunday's drone strike is the first known CIA counterterrorism operation since Kabul fell to the Taliban last year. The senior administration official said that the U.S. did not coordinate the strike or give notice to the Taliban.
Fast News
Friday, July 29, 2022
Ukraine calls for Russia to be recognised as 'state sponsor of terrorism'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the deaths of dozens of prisoners in a Russian-held jail showed there should be clear legal recognition that Russia was a "state sponsor of terrorism."
"Today, I received information about the attack by the occupiers on Olenivka (the prison's location), in the Donetsk region. It is a deliberate Russian war crime, a deliberate mass murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war. More than 50 dead," he said in his daily address.
"I am appealing especially to the United States of America. A decision is needed and it is needed now."
For live updates from Friday (July 29), click here
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
More than 1,000 Lufthansa flights have been cancelled because of a strike by the German airline's ground staff, affecting tens of thousands of passengers.
The one-day strike, which started at 3.45 am local time (0145 GMT) on Wednesday, has forced Germany’s flag carrier to cancel almost all flights from Frankfurt and Munich airports.
About 134,000 passengers had to change their travel plans or cancel them altogether, German news agency dpa reported.
Flights operated by other airlines, which are usually supported by Lufthansa ground staff, were also affected with at least 47 connections cancelled on Tuesday, dpa said.
At Frankfurt airport, 725 of 1,160 scheduled flights were canceled for the day, according to a spokesperson for airport operator Fraport.
Major disruptions and flight delays were also expected at Berlin, Cologne/Bonn and Dusseldorf airports, adding to the travel chaos during the peak holiday period.
The airline advised affected passengers not to come to the airports because most of the counters there would not be staffed anyway.
READ MORE: Turkish Cargo named fastest growing international cargo airline
Call for pay increase
The ver.di service workers’ union announced the strike on Monday as it seeks to raise pressure on Lufthansa in negotiations on pay for about 20,000 employees of logistical, technical and cargo subsidiaries of the airline.
Ver.di is calling for a 9.5 percent pay increase this year and says an offer by Lufthansa earlier this month, which would involve a deal for an 18-month period, falls far short of its demands.
The walkout comes at a time when airports in Germany and across Europe already are seeing disruption and long lines for security checks because of staff shortages and soaring travel demand.
The next round of wage negotiations is expected to take place in Frankfurt next week.
As inflation soars, strikes for higher pay by airport crews in France and Scandinavian Airlines pilots in Sweden, Norway and Denmark have deepened the chaos for travellers who have faced last-minute cancellations, lengthy delays, lost luggage or long waits for bags in airports across Europe.
Airports like London’s Heath row and Amsterdam’s Schiphol have limited daily flights or passenger numbers.
READ MORE: Lufthansa scraps 1,300 flights over two-day German strike
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
The European Union agreed to reduce gas consumption to break its dependence on Russia on Tuesday, as missile strikes on Ukraine's Black Sea coast cast doubt on a grain export deal.
The effort to help Germany wean itself off Russian gas for the winter came as Turkey announced a meeting in Russia next week between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Erdogan wants Turkey — on good terms with both Moscow and Kyiv — at the center of diplomatic efforts to halt the five-month war, just as the EU took another big step to cut ties to Moscow.
The EU gas use cut, approved by energy ministers in Brussels, was hailed as an effective response to Russia's manipulation of its energy wealth as an economic weapon.
The plan nominally commits EU countries to reduce their gas use by 15% during the winter, although exceptions were carved out for some countries and Hungary rejected the deal as "useless."
"We have made a huge step towards securing gas supplies for our citizens and economies for the upcoming winter," said Czech industry minister Jozef Sikela, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.
"I know the decision was not easy, but I think at the end, everybody understands that this sacrifice is necessary," he added.
Hungary was the only country to oppose the plan, which passed on a majority vote, further isolating Budapest as the only member state reluctant to go further against Russia.
"This is an unjustifiable, useless, unenforceable and harmful proposal that completely ignores national interests," said Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.
The deal "serves purely communication purposes, and aims to save the credibility of some Western European politicians," he added.
Germany, the EU's economic powerhouse, is hugely dependent on Russian gas. Berlin takes a major share of the 40% of EU gas imports that came from Russia last year.
"It is true that Germany, with its dependence on Russian gas, has made a strategic mistake but our government is working... to correct this," German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said.
The plan asks member states to voluntarily reduce gas use by 15% —based on a five-year average for the months in question — starting next month and over the subsequent winter through March.
The target will be adapted to the situation of each country, taking into account their level of stocks and whether or not they have pipelines to share gas.
Exceptions were given for island states like Ireland, Cyprus and Malta and to Spain or Portugal, which have limited links to the interconnected gas supply grid.
Baltic countries will be exempted if their electricity connections with Russia's grid were to be cut.
In the final proposal, EU member countries also rewrote an earlier European Commission plan to give Brussels — rather than the member states — the power to impose gas use cuts in an emergency.
The regulation now foresees the possibility to trigger a "Union alert" that would make the target mandatory, but the decision would lie with member states, a statement said.
The EU deal landed a day after Gazprom said it is cutting daily gas deliveries intended for Europe to about 20% of capacity from Wednesday.
Gazprom claimed technical reasons for choking off supply, but EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson dismissed this claim.
"This is a politically motivated step and we have to be ready for that and exactly for that reason the pre-emptive reduction of our gas demand is a wise strategy," she said.
The extent of Russia's split with the West over Ukraine was also underlined by Moscow's announcement that it would quit the International Space Station after 2024.
Until now space exploration was one of the few areas where cooperation between Russia, the United States and its allies had not been wrecked by tensions over Ukraine and elsewhere.
The decision to leave the ISS program "has been made", Roscosmos chief Yury Borisov told Putin.
Meanwhile, fighting continued in Ukraine. Kyiv said Russian forces launched multiple missile strikes at targets on the Black Sea coast near the southern port city of Odesa and in Mykolaiv.
The attacks come days after Russian strikes hit Odesa called into question a breakthrough deal to resume exports of grain from Ukraine, that have been disrupted by Moscow's invasion.
Rescuers were working on the ground near Odesa where "residential buildings" near the coast were hit in the strikes, Ukraine's southern military command said on Facebook.
In the east, Kramatorsk's mayor Oleksandr Goncharenko said he was worried about how tens of thousands of mostly elderly residents would cope in the coming months without any gas to keep them warm.
"This winter will be very difficult," he said.
He said that Ukrainian forces would have to push the Russians back at least 20 kilometers (12 miles) to be able to make repairs to broken gas pipes.
He called for more long-range weapons from Western allies to help repel the enemy.
