United Way Hosted Special Holiday Camp
Non-profit organization, United Way Turks and Caicos hosted a special holiday camp on December 27th 2024, to assess children's reading skills and expand their educational outreach.
Sponsored by the Schechter family, a unit owner at the Grace Bay Club, the camp, which was staged at the Salvation Army's Brighter Futures Center in Providenciales, was geared to provide both fun and meaningful engagement for local children.
The Schecter family volunteered to spend time with the kids and get involved in what they're sponsoring.
The camp included a mix of activities, from reading assessments and painting to athletics and jewelry-making.
Grace Bay Resorts, another key partner, sponsored and prepared lunch for the event.
The family has committed to sponsor a reading intervention program at the lanthe Pratt Primary School. The program will mirror successful interventions already in place at Thelma Lightbourne and Enid Capron Primary Schools.
The intervention program starts with grade two students. A dedicated teacher will work full-time at the school, pulling out small groups of children for focused reading sessions. The program has already shown great success, helping children graduate who might otherwise have struggled.
United Way also plans to expand its after-school programs to support older students in grades four through six who are still developing foundational reading skills.
Without this support, many children would struggle to progress academically and could become vulnerable to negative influences.
SIPT Defense Lawyer Passes Away in the UK
From our news partners, Weekly News, we have been made to understand that a key prosecutor in the SIPT trial has passed away.
The Swansea Crown Court held a minute's silence in honour of defense attorney Huw Evans before it sat for business on Thursday, January 9th.
Evans - a native of Carmarthen, Wales - has been the attorney for SIPT defendant Thomas Chalmers Misick for several years in the Turks and Caicos Islands Supreme Court.
Evans, along with other lawyers and defendants in the high-profile corruption case were to resume sitting the final SIPT trial involving Chal Misick, his brother Michael Misick and McAllister Hanchell last week.
However, due to the unfortunate development, the trial has been pushed to February 3, 2025, for resumption.
Speaking with the Weekly News last Thursday, Chief Prosecutor, King’s Counsel Andrew Mitchell related that Oliver Smith KC will be taking over for Evans on Misick’s defence team for the remainder of the trial, along with attorney Kayode Smith.
Evans – the eldest of three boys – was called to the Bar in 1985 before serving in the Royal Navy. According to his profile at his chambers, 30 Park Place in Cardiff, he completed his pupillage in Swansea before starting to practice in Cardiff in 1989. He joined 30 Park Place in 2005.
The long-running trial has not been without its tragedies, with this being its latest development.
The second retrial finally got started December 2nd 2024, after being put on hold for more than a year as the Judiciary searched assiduously for an appropriately qualified judge to preside over the complex case.
This followed the conclusion of the first re-trial in 2022, with a mixed verdict. That verdict was appealed, and a decision is expected from the Court of Appeal sometime this year on the more complex issues.
The entire trial process had to be restarted in 2021, following the death of the trial judge Paul Harrison.
TCI Mourns the Loss of Boxing Coach - JimKelly Joseph
On the afternoon of Saturday January 4th, an incident at sea occurred in Providenciales.
3 males including a 9 year old minor, went on an afternoon fishing trip and experienced difficulties at sea.
Shortly after 3:00 PM on Saturday, the Police Control Room received a report of a vessel in distress
which had departed Cooper Jack Bay.
The vessel experienced engine failure and began taking on water in the bow.
With the swift response of boating volunteers, the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force
Marine Unit, the Department of Environmental and Coastal Resources, Fisheries and the United States Coast Guard air support, two individuals—a male in his mid-twenties
and the minor—were successfully rescued and transported to Cheshire Hall Medical Center for medical evaluation.
Efforts to locate the third individual, a well known athlete and boxer - Jim Kelly Joseph, continued until about 9:30pm Saturday night.
Efforts continued Sunday morning resulting in the finding of Joseph's body around 9:10am, near Morley's Reef.
Jim Kelly, 32 years old was described by the hundreds who gathered as a strong young man, determined and a fighter. His motto, Humble, Discipline, Respect.
He was recently released from a 4 year and 9 month stint in prison for firearm related offences.
Upon release from prison, Joseph said that the only thing which kept him motivated was seeing his son again.
Joseph sat at the head of the boxing federation hoping to restart the sport and possibly open his gym once he was released from prison.
The boxing champ in an exclusive interview with TCI Sun newspaper, said God has a way of working in mysterious ways, adding that he took God for granted.
He stated quote,
“God has a way of working in mysterious ways and I took him for granted because he got me up top, but I forgot that He was the reason why I got there so He had to remind me that all that I worked hard for, He was the one that gave it to me so He will take it away from me in order to remind me that He was the one who brought me there, so now I have to walk that line straight according to His actions and His way and will,” end quote
He will be missed by the entire community of the Turks and Caicos Islands. He was a determined, disciplined young man helping the youth of today.
May his soul rest in peace and rise in glory.
TCI Has Youth Advocate for Mental Health
A'Janae Robinson was appointed as a Caribbean National Mental Health Focal Point for 2023-2025 representing the TCI.
Following an application process, Robinson joins many youth advocates who have been appointed from 17 Caribbean countries and territories to join in a new partnership between UNICEF and youth led regional mental health advocacy organization Let's Unpack It.
The Caribbean Youth National Mental Health Focal Point network will help to design and implement initiatives and campaigns around mental health and wellness.
They will also represent the Caribbean youth at global events, helping to mobilize other youth to end the stigma and prioritize mental health and wellness.
Robinson travelled to Barbados last November, as one of over 40 youth advocates chosen across 15 countries to be part of the first cohort of Latin American and Eastern Caribbean youth to participate in UNICEF's Youth Advocacy Guide training.
As an aspiring psychologist, Robinson says that she is honored to have been provides this opportunity to help fight to destigmatize mental health not only in the TCI but around the region and even worldwide.
Soldier tells BBC of front-line 'hell'
Outnumbered and outgunned, one front-line soldier has given a sobering account of Ukraine's struggle to cling on to its foothold on the east bank of the vast Dnipro River.
Several hundred Ukrainian soldiers have made it there as part of a counter-offensive launched six months ago.
Under relentless Russian fire, the soldier spent several weeks on the Russian-occupied side of the river as Ukraine sought to establish a bridgehead around the village of Krynky. The BBC is not naming him to protect his identity.
His account, sent via a messaging app, speaks of troop boats blown out of the water, inexperienced reinforcements, and a feeling of abandonment by Ukraine's military commanders.
It highlights growing tensions as Ukraine's defense against Russia's invasion grinds to the end of another year.
Ukraine's military told the BBC they are not commenting on the situation in that area for security reasons.
Ukrainian soldier's quotes:
"The entire river crossing is under constant fire. I've seen boats with my comrades on board just disappear into the water after being hit, lost forever to the Dnipro River.
"We must carry everything with us - generators, fuel, and food. When you're setting up a bridgehead you need a lot of everything, but supplies weren't planned for this area.
"We thought after we made it there the enemy would flee and then we could calmly transport everything we needed, but it didn't turn out that way.
"When we arrived on the [eastern] bank, the enemy were waiting. Russians we managed to capture said their forces were tipped off about our landing so when we got there, they knew exactly where to find us. They threw everything at us - artillery, mortars, and flame thrower systems. I thought I'd never get out."
Yet the few hundred marines have been able to dig in, partly helped by Ukrainian artillery fire from the higher, western banks of the Dnipro.
The river separates the Russian-occupied and Ukrainian-controlled parts of the southern Kherson region.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has been keen to discuss this offensive, framing it as the beginning of something more.
Ukraine's General Staff reported in its daily update on Sunday that its forces were maintaining their positions on the eastern bank of the Dnipro, and were inflicting "fire damage on the enemy's rear".
This soldier's testimony, however, reveals splits between Ukraine's government and its generals over the state of the war.
Ukraine's commander-in-chief Gen Valery Zaluzhny told the Economist magazine in November that, "just like the First World War we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate."
President Zelensky's office swiftly rebuked the general for his comments, denying there was a deadlock on the battlefield.
"Every day we sat in the forest taking incoming fire. We were trapped - the roads and paths were all riddled with mines. The Russians cannot control everything, and we use it. But their drones are constantly buzzing, ready to strike as soon as they see movement.
"Supplies were the weakest link. The Russians monitored our supply lines, so it became more difficult - there was a real lack of drinking water, despite our deliveries by boat and drone.
"We paid for a lot of our kit - buying generators, power banks, and warm clothes ourselves. Now the frosts are coming, things will only get worse - the real situation is being hushed up, so no one will change anything.
"No one knows the goals. Many believe that the command simply abandoned us. The guys believe that our presence had more political than military significance. But we just did our job and didn't get into strategy."
There's no doubt this crossing has forced some Russian forces to redeploy from other parts of the front line, such as their heavily defended positions in the Zaporizhzhia region, where Kyiv hoped there would have been a breakthrough sooner.
BBC Russia recently spoke to some Russian troops who are defending the riverbank in that area. They said it was "suicide" for their soldiers to move there, saying they had lost many men in the fight and that they could not dislodge the Ukrainians from their foothold.
Ukraine's military meanwhile says it wants to target Russian supply lines and force them back enough from the river to protect civilians from shelling.
It means both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are absorbing a lot of fire.
"Mostly our losses were mistakes - someone didn't climb in that trench quickly enough; another guy hid badly. If someone isn't switched on, he'll be immediately targeted from everywhere.
"But thanks to our doctors, if we can get an injured soldier to the medics - he'll be saved. They're titans, Gods. But we can't get the remains of the fallen out. It's just too dangerous.
"At the same time, our drones and missiles inflict a lot of losses on the enemy. We took prisoners of war once, but where to put them, if we have no way to cross the river even with our injured comrades?"
Like every other part of the front line, this operation has also turned into a battle of attrition.
While Russia is filling its ranks with conscripts and pardoned prisoners, Ukraine is struggling to find the manpower it needs.
A recent BBC investigation found that nearly 20,000 men have fled Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion to avoid the draft.
"Several brigades were supposed to be posted here, not individual companies - we just don't have enough men.
"There are a lot of young guys among us. We need people, but trained people, not the green ones we have there now. Some guys had spent just three weeks in training and only managed to shoot a few times.
"It's a total nightmare. A year ago, I wouldn't have said that, but now, sorry, I'm fed up.
"Everyone who wanted to volunteer for war came long ago - it's too hard now to tempt people with money. Now we're getting those who didn't manage to escape the draft. You'll laugh at this, but some of our marines can't even swim."
The village of Krynky has been turned to rubble.
The scenes of palpable relief when Kherson city and swathes of the Kharkiv region were liberated a year ago have yet to be replicated.
Instead, Ukraine's wins are chalked up in small parcels of devastated and abandoned land.
That makes President Zelensky's case for long-term Western support harder to sell politically.
But regardless, the anonymous soldier's fight will soon continue.
"I got out after getting concussed from a mine, but one of my colleagues didn't make it - all that was left of him was his helmet.
"I feel like I escaped from hell, but the guys who replaced us last time got into even more hell than us.
"But the next rotation is due. My time to cross the river again is soon."
Source- BBC
Spotify to axe 1,500 workers to cut costs
Swedish music-streaming giant Spotify has announced it is cutting 17% of its workforce, about 1,500 jobs, as the company seeks to clamp down on costs.
Chief executive Daniel Ek said he had made the "difficult" decision with economic growth slowing "dramatically".
Spotify employs about 9,000 people, and Mr Ek said "substantial action to rightsize our costs" was needed for the company to meet its objectives.
He added he understood the cuts would be "incredibly painful for our team".
"I recognize this will impact several individuals who have made valuable contributions", Mr. Ek said. "To be blunt, many smart, talented, and hard-working people will be departing us."
Spotify cut staff earlier this year but these plans dwarf those previous announcements.
In its latest results, Spotify reported a profit of €65m (£55.7m) for the three months to September - its first quarterly profit for more than a year - helped by price rises and higher subscriber numbers.
The tech company has been expanding worldwide as it seeks to reach a billion users by 2030.
It currently has 601 million of them, up from 345 million at the end of 2020.
Mr Ek said that given the recent "positive" results, the job cuts being announced "will feel surprisingly large" for many people.
He said Spotify had considered making smaller reductions during 2024 and 2025, but decided that more drastic action was needed to improve the company's finances.
Since it launched, Spotify has spent a lot of money on growing the business and securing exclusive content, such as podcasts created by the likes of Michelle and Barack Obama as well as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
The deal with Harry and Meghan cost a reported $25m (£19.7m) and saw just 12 episodes delivered over two and a half years before the deal ended in June.
Commenting on podcast content, Mr Ek told the BBC in September: "The truth of the matter is some of it has worked, some of it hasn't."
The company will start informing affected employees on Monday. Employees will get about five months of severance pay, holiday pay, and healthcare coverage for the severance period.
Spotify will also offer immigration support to employees whose immigration status is connected with their employment.
These job losses are the latest in a series of layoffs announced in the tech industry, which has cut tens of thousands of jobs following a boom during Covid pandemic lockdowns.
British telecom group BT said in May that it would axe up to 55,000 jobs by the end of the decade.
Tech giants Meta and Microsoft also revealed plans to reduce their workforce by as many as 10,000 employees this year.
Online retail giant Amazon announced it was cutting over 18,000 jobs worldwide and Google's parent company Alphabet announced cuts of around 12,000 people.
Smaller firms have also felt the pinch with Yahoo and LinkedIn both announcing cuts this year too.
Apple however seems to have bucked the trend, announcing that it would be hiring some staff in the AI sector.
Source- BBC
Jamaica wins two tourism awards in Dubai
Over the weekend, Jamaica received two major accolades at the prestigious 30th World Travel Awards held at the iconic Burj Al Arab in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Jamaica won the titles of "World's Best Family Destination" and "World's Best Cruise Destination."
Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, founder and chair of the Jamaica-based Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre (GTRCMC) ‘Think Tank,’ accepted the awards on behalf of Jamaica.
Additionally, Bartlett presented five Global Tourism Resilience awards to two prominent Middle Eastern corporations and three countries. The audience consisted of government leaders, officials, global corporate executives, and travel industry stakeholders.
The Global Tourism Resilience awards recognized entities and nations that exemplify global leadership, visionary foresight, and innovation in overcoming critical challenges and adversity.
The inaugural awardees included Qatar, the Maldives, and the Philippines; as well as UAE corporate giants DP World, an Emirati multinational logistics corporation specializing in cargo logistics; and Dnata, a prominent global air and travel services provider that offers ground handling, cargo, travel, catering, and retail services across six continents in over 30 countries.
Source- Loop News
Could X go bankrupt under Elon Musk
Elon Musk's profane attack on advertisers boycotting X, formerly known as Twitter, has baffled experts. If advertisers keep leaving and don't come back, can X survive?
In April, I sat down with Musk for the first of his many chaotic interviews about his acquisition of X.
He said something that, in hindsight, was rather revealing, but which passed me by at the time.
Talking about advertising, he said: "If Disney feels comfortable advertising children's movies [on Twitter], and Apple feels comfortable advertising iPhones, those are good indicators that Twitter is a good place to advertise."
Seven months later, Disney and Apple are no longer advertising on X - and Musk is telling companies that have left to "Go [expletive] yourself."
The companies paused adverts after an investigation by a US organization, Media Matters for America, flagged ads appearing next to pro-Nazi posts. X fiercely challenged the report, questioning its research methods, and launched a lawsuit against the organization.
In a fiery interview on Wednesday, Musk also used the "b" word - bankruptcy, in a sign of just how much the ad boycott is damaging the company's bottom line.
For a company he bought for $44bn (£35bn) last year, bankruptcy might sound unthinkable. But it is possible.
To understand why, you have to look at how reliant X is on advertising revenue - and why advertisers are not coming back.
Although we don't have the latest figures, last year around 90% of X's revenue was from advertising. It is the heart of the business.
On Wednesday Musk more than hinted at this.
"If the company fails… it will fail because of an advertiser boycott. And that will be what bankrupts the company," he said.
Mark Gay, chief client officer at marketing consultancy Ebiquity, which works with hundreds of companies, says there is no sign anyone is returning.
"The money has come out and nobody is putting a strategy in place for reinvesting there," he says.
On Friday, retail giant Walmart announced it was no longer advertising on X.
After Musk had told advertisers who quit X where to go in Wednesday's interview at the New York Times DealBook Summit, he said something that made advertisers wince even harder.
"Hi Bob", he said - a reference to the chief executive of Disney, Bob Iger.
When Musk puts chief executives "in his crosshairs" like this they will be even more reticent to be involved with X, says Lou Paskalis, of marketing consultancy AJL Advisory.
Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, adds: "It doesn't take a social media expert to understand and to know that publicly and personally attacking advertisers and companies that pay X's bills is not going to be good for business."
If advertisers are gone for good, what does Musk have?
When I interviewed him in April, it was clear he understood that subscriptions on X were not going to replace advertising money.
"If you have a million people that are subscribed for, let's say, $100 a year-ish, that's $100m. That's a fairly small revenue stream relative to advertising," he told me.
In 2022, Twitter's advertising revenue was around $4bn. Insider Intelligence estimates this year it will drop to $1.9bn.
The company has two major outlays. The first is its staffing bill. Musk has cut X to the bone already, laying off thousands.
The second is servicing the loans Musk took out to buy Twitter, totaling about $13bn. Reuters has reported that the company now has to pay $1.2bn or so in interest payments every year.
If the company cannot service the interest on its loans or afford to pay staff then, yes, X really could go bankrupt.
But that would be an extreme scenario that Musk would surely want to avoid.
He has options. By far the simplest thing for Musk would be to put more of his money in - but it sounds like he doesn't want to do that.
Musk could try to renegotiate with the banks for less onerous interest payments. He could ask, for example, for "payment in kind" interest - where payments are delayed.
But if renegotiation does not work and the banks don't get their money, then bankruptcy could be the only option, and at that point, the banks could try to push for a change in management.
"It would be very messy and complex," says Jared Ellias, a professor of law at Harvard Law School. "And it would be extremely challenging. It would create a lot of news because he would constantly get deposed and have to testify in court."
It could be terrible for Musk's business reputation, and would also impact how Musk could borrow money in the future.
And in a bankruptcy scenario, would X simply stop working?
"I find that to be very hard to believe," says Ellias. "If that happened, it'd be because Elon decided to pull the rug out. But even then, if he were to do that, the creditors would have the option of pushing the company into bankruptcy, getting a trustee appointed, and turning the lights back on," he says.
The obvious solution to all these problems for X is to simply find another revenue stream - and fast. Musk is certainly trying.
He has launched a new audio and video call service. Last month he streamed himself playing video games - he hopes X can compete with apps like Twitch.
He wants X to become the "everything app", covering everything from chat to online payments.
According to the New York Times, which got hold of the pitch deck Musk was giving to investors last year, X was supposed to bring in $15m from a payments business in 2023, growing to about $1.3bn by 2028.
X is also sitting on a huge treasure trove of data, and its vast archive of conversations can be used to train chatbots. Musk believes this data is vastly valuable.
So X does have potential.
But in the short term, none of these options plug the hole advertisers have left.
It's why Musk's profane outburst was so baffling to many.
"I don't have any theories that make sense," Paskalis says. "There is a revenue model in his head that eludes me."
Source- BBC
Toyota will 'not give up' on combustion sports cars
Toyota's GR performance division plans to use hydrogen to keep its combustion-engined sports cars on the road – but infrastructure shortcomings prevent it from being an immediate solution.
The GR division, which has its roots in Toyota's Gazoo Racing motorsport operation, currently sells four cars: the GR Supra, the GR86, the GR Yaris, and, in the US, the GR Corolla, each of which is powered by a petrol engine.
Toyota recently revealed the FT-Se concept as a preview of GR's first EV and has detailed several initiatives on which it's working to ensure that electric sports cars are suitably engaging. However, it hasn't put a timeframe on their arrival and has voiced no plans to phase out its petrol cars.
Now GR manager Masahito Watanabe has said that all-out electrification isn't a priority for the sub-brand, pointing to Toyota's highly publicized efforts in recent years to develop hydrogen-combustion technology as a potential lifeline for its piston engines.
"We still think the internal combustion engine has some potential and, as we do so, we will of course be trying to comply with all the applicable rules according to the regions in each country," he said.
"But we don't want to give up. It's not over just yet, because if you look at the internal combustion engine, there's still hydrogen combustion that can be a part of that zero-emission line-up, so I think that's going to continue.
"As you see in the [FT-Se], we still see high possibility for battery EVs, but what we want to do is pursue the multi-pathway [approach] that we've been seeing in motorsports and sports cars in general."
Toyota’s multi-pathway approach manifests in a product plan that includes 15 battery electric cars by 2026 but still leans heavily on hybrid technology in a bid to provide maximum choice for consumers.
It also remains committed to hydrogen fuel cell technology, although is shifting its FCEV focus from passenger cars to heavy goods vehicles, as well as ships and power storage.
The potential for hydrogen to play a role in Toyota’s sports car strategy is clear too.
Watanabe said: "We still believe that there's a lot of potential to be had from the hydrogen combustion engine itself. But we know that the infrastructure is woefully insufficient. This is a common issue across many different countries and we completely appreciate that.
"What that means is that we won't be able to commercialize hydrogen combustion engines right at this moment. But look at some of the movements put forward in Europe, the US, and Japan. And this isn't just governments; private companies are working towards increasing the hydrogen infrastructure.
"So we're looking out for that. What we want to do in the end is provide as many options as possible to our customers. So we will continue to develop the hydrogen internal combustion engine as part of that."
Watanabe didn't give any clues as to what a new combustion-engined GR car could look like, nor when it might arrive.
A new version of the GR Supra was spotted testing at the Nürburgring recently and widely reported to be a hardcore 'GRMN' variant equipped with the 454bhp straight six from the BMW M2. But when asked for confirmation of these reports, Watanabe went only so far as to suggest the spotted prototype is some sort of "evaluation model".
He did, however, reiterate Toyota's aim to eventually build a road-going version of Gazoo Racing's upcoming GT3-spec race car, shown in concept form last year. "But at this moment, I can't say anything about when."
Gazoo's new GT3 racer is set to hit the track in 2026, and the road-going version is reported to be in line to succeed the Lexus RC F coupé. No details of its engine have yet been revealed.
Source- AUTOCAR
Word of the year 2023 is 'rizz' after Tom Holland interview fueled
"Rizz", meaning romantic appeal, has been chosen as the Oxford 2023 word of the year.
A team of experts and tens of thousands of public votes selected 'rizz' as the word which most captures 2023.
And, if you don't already know, it's used (mainly by Gen Z) to describe someone's ability to attract a romantic partner.
The slang term beat seven other contenders to win word of the year, including Swiftie which is, of course, the word used to describe fans of Taylor Swift.
Recorded uses of the word 'rizz' have increased dramatically this year, peaking in June when Spider-Man actor Tom Holland was asked about his 'rizz' in a widely shared interview.
He answered: "I have no rizz whatsoever."
According to the Oxford University Press, "rizz" is defined as style, charm, or attractiveness; the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner.
It is thought to be a shortened version of the word charisma.
It's unusual to take the middle part of a word for its shortened form. Other examples include 'fridge' (from refrigerator) and 'flu' (from influenza).
And if you can't get enough of it as a noun, you can also use it as a verb by using the phrase 'rizz up', which means to attract or seduce someone.
Experts from Oxford University Press said the shortlist of eight words and phrases was chosen to most reflect the mood, ethos, or preoccupations of the last year.
Source- Sky News