Grand Turk man charged
A 30-year old Grand Turk man has been charged with Assault of a Police Officer .
The accused – Xavier Denzell King – was also charged with the offence of Dangerous Driving and Resisting Arrest.
Mr. King was arrested on April 23rd around 5.30 pm by officers of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force along the Long Bay Highway and is expected to appear before a Magistrate on May 02 to answer the charges.
Female Teenager Wounded
The Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force officers are actively investigating the wounding of a female teenager that occurred last evening.
At around 9.:47 pm yesterday, (April 26th), Command Centre received a call from the Cheshire Hall Medical Centre stating that a female victim was brought into the facility with a gunshot wound.
Whilst her injuries are serious, they are not life threatening. Based on preliminary inquiries, the 15-year old female, and a friend were driving into Five Cays, Providenciales, in the vicinity of the roundabout, when a vehicle pulled alongside and started shooting at them.
The victim was rushed to hospital and treated. The motive for the attack is still being established, and one hypothesis is that this relates to a road traffic altercation involving both vehicles shortly before the incident. Investigations are continuing by our Serious Crime Team.
The public is being advised to notify the closest police station or to contact Crime Stoppers and give any information relating to this incident or any illegal activity anonymously.
Please note, that Crime Stoppers calls are answered in Miami and in Houston by Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers which is a non-profit and not a police agency. The calls are anonymous and cannot be traced in the United States or the TCI.
Giannis Antetokounmpo left behind a motivational quote after playoff exit
Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo has said "there's no failure in sports" after his team's early exit from the NBA play-offs.
After being NBA champions in 2021, the Bucks were knocked out of last season's Conference semi-finals and then this season's first round, despite being top seed in the Eastern Conference.
After the Bucks' exit, Antetokounmpo was asked if this season was a failure.
"There's good days and bad days," said NBA's two-time Most Valuable Player.
"Some days you're able to be successful, some days you're not. Some days it's your turn, some days it's not your turn.
"That's what sport's about. You don't always win, and this year somebody else is going to win. We'll come back next year and try to be better."
In football some fans and pundits have accused Arsenal of 'choking' during the Premier League title race as they have surrendered their advantage to Manchester City.
However, Antetokounmpo, who is in contention for a third MVP award this season, referenced Michael Jordan, a five-time MVP between 1988 and 1998, when making his point.
"Every year you work towards a goal," said the Greek power forward, 28. "There are always steps to success.
"Michael Jordan played for 15 years, he won six championships, so the other nine years he was a failure?"
Source- BBC
Microsoft furious after Call of Duty deal blocked
Microsoft's president has attacked the UK after it was blocked from buying US gaming firm Activision, saying the EU was a better place to start a business.
The move was "bad for Britain" and marked Microsoft's "darkest day" in its four decades of working in the country, Brad Smith told the BBC.
The regulator hit back saying it had to do what's best for people, "not merging firms with commercial interests".
The UK's move means the multi-billion dollar deal cannot go ahead globally.
Although US and EU regulators have yet to decide on whether to approve the deal, the UK regulator the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said: "Activision is intertwined through different markets - it can't be separated for the UK. So this decision blocks the deal from happening globally."
If it had been approved, the $68.7bn (£55bn) deal would have been the gaming industry's biggest ever takeover, and would have seen Microsoft get hold of massively popular games titles such as Call of Duty, Candy Crush and World of Warcraft.
Both Microsoft and Activision have said they will appeal against the CMA's decision.
Source- BBC
Facebook owner Meta’s profits exceed expectations
Meta, Facebook and Instagram's parent firm, has reported a profit of $5.7bn (£4.6bn) for the first quarter of this year, surpassing expectations for a period in which many jobs were cut.
It said artificial intelligence (AI) was "driving good results" across its business.
Total revenue was $28.6bn, while the number of people on Facebook every month rose to just under three billion.
"Our community continues to grow," said chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.
"We're also becoming more efficient so we can build better products faster, and put ourselves in a stronger position to deliver our long-term vision," he said.
Meta sees "an opportunity to introduce AI agents to billions of people in ways that will be useful and meaningful," Mr Zuckerberg told investors.
While offering few details, he said that Meta was "exploring chat experiences in WhatsApp and Messenger, visual creation tools for posts in Facebook and Instagram and ads, and over time video and multimodal experiences as well."
The company intends to commercialise its privately-run generative AI, joining Google in finding practical applications for the tech - because the industry is awash with hype around its capabilities.
Meta established Facebook's AI Research laboratory in 2013, but has not made big inroads in this area yet, as some other big tech firms - such as Microsoft - have done.
But Mr Zuckerberg insisted Meta was "no longer behind in building our AI infrastructure" and said generative AI Meta products, which can instantly create sentences and graphics, would be released in the coming months.
He added the move would not be at the cost of the metaverse, Meta's virtual reality project.
Meta's Reality Labs division reported a net loss of $4bn last quarter, and the company said it expected "operating losses to increase year over year in 2023".
However, Mr Zuckerberg said the "narrative that has developed that Meta is moving away from the metaverse" was "not accurate", adding it still planned to reveal the next Quest VR headset later this year.
The positive financial figures coincide with a period where Meta has slashed jobs and projects. The aim was to turn 2023 into "a year of efficiency," said Mr Zuckerberg.
Meta has been the most aggressive US big tech firm when it comes to downsizing, shedding almost a quarter of its global workforce, more than 20,000 jobs, in just a few months.
"The year of efficiency is off to a stronger than expected start for Meta," said Insider Intelligence principal analyst, Debra Aho Williamson.
"In this economic environment - and after the disaster that was 2022 - 3% year over year revenue growth is an accomplishment," she added.
Mr Zuckerberg has called 2022 "a humbling wake-up call" and said it would be wise to "prepare ourselves for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years".
Ben Barringer, from investment management firm Quilter Cheviot, said: "You have to take your hat off to Mark Zuckerberg and Meta given the transformation of the business over the last six months.
"The 'year of efficiency' Zuckerberg likes to talk about is bearing fruit. These results are a strong beat on the expectations and, given the improving macro backdrop, Meta should continue to recover well."
Source- BBC
Tesla cuts prices on its most expensive models
Tesla has cut prices on its two most expensive electric vehicles in the United States, according to the company’s website, days after CEO Elon Musk said recent price cuts on other models had stoked demand.
The price cuts, Tesla’s fifth adjustment since the start of the year, ranged from 4% on the performance version of the Model S to 9% on the more expensive Model X.
Musk has said repeatedly in recent months that Tesla would focus on bringing prices down to drive demand and that it had seen success in sparking orders with global discounts introduced in January.
“The desire for people to own a Tesla is extremely high. The limiting factor is their ability to pay for a Tesla,” Musk said last week at Tesla’s investor day.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the most recent price cuts.
Tesla slashed prices on its cars across all of its markets in January, offering discounts of up to 20% in what many analysts saw as the start of a price war by the electric vehicle market leader.
It has been adjusting prices since with a pace and frequency that goes beyond what established automaker’s have attempted in an industry where a car’s base price is still referred to as a “sticker price” on a vehicle in inventory.
The Model S and Model X, which come in base all-wheel drive (AWD) and performance “Plaid” editions, represented about 4% of Tesla’s global deliveries in 2022. Its two cheaper models, the Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover, made up the rest.
Tesla’s website showed it had cut prices on both versions of its Model S by $5,000. The basic version of Model S was cut by 5% to $89,990, while the price of the performance, Plaid variant was cut by 4% to $109,990.
Prices of both the performance and basic variants of Model X cars were cut by $10,000, the electric vehicle maker’s website showed. The price of the basic, AWD version of the Model X was cut by 9% to $99,990 while its performance Plaid version was cut by 8% to $109,990.
Tesla has a new version of the Model 3 codenamed “Highland” scheduled to go into production later this year and a change to the Model Y codenamed “Juniper” for next year, Reuters has reported.
Source- CNN
Jerry Springer, former mayor who transformed daytime TV, dead at 79
Jerry Springer, the former mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, whose eponymous daytime show transformed talk television, has died, ABC News has confirmed. He was 79.
According to his rep, Springer "died peacefully Thursday at his home in suburban Chicago."
Jene Galvin, a lifelong friend and spokesman for the family, added: "Jerry's ability to connect with people was at the heart of his success in everything he tried whether that was politics, broadcasting or just joking with people on the street who wanted a photo or a word."
He continued, "He's irreplaceable and his loss hurts immensely, but memories of his intellect, heart and humor will live on."
The statement concluded, as his shows did, with a final thought: "To remember Jerry, the family asks that in lieu of flowers you consider following his spirit and make a donation or commit to an act of kindness to someone in need or a worthy advocacy organization. As he always said, 'Take care of yourself, and each other.'"
Source- ABC
Worries over sudden ocean warming spike
The world’s oceans have suddenly spiked much hotter and well above record levels in the last few weeks, with scientists trying to figure out what it means and whether it forecasts a surge in atmospheric warming.
Some researchers think the jump in sea surface temperatures stems from a brewing and possibly strong natural El Nino warming weather condition plus a rebound from three years of a cooling La Nina, all on top of steady global warming that is heating deeper water below. If that’s the case, they said, record-breaking ocean temperatures this month could be the first in many heat records to shatter.
From early March to this week, the global average ocean sea surface temperature jumped nearly two-tenths of a degree Celsius (0.36 degree Fahrenheit), according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, which climate scientists use and trust. That may sound small, but for the average of the world’s oceans — which is 71 per cent of Earth’s area —to rise so much in that short a time, “that’s huge,” said University of Colorado climate scientist Kris Karnauskas. “That’s an incredible departure from what was already a warm state to begin with.”
Climate scientists have been talking about the warming on social media and amongst themselves. Some, like University of Pennsylvania’s Michael Mann, quickly dismiss concerns by saying it is merely a growing El Nino on top of a steady human-caused warming increase.
It has warmed especially off the coast of Peru and Ecuador, where before the 1980s most El Ninos began. El Nino is the natural warming of parts of the equatorial Pacific that changes weather worldwide and spikes global temperatures. Until last month, the world has been in the flip side, a cooling called La Nina, that has been unusually strong and long, lasting three years and causing extreme weather.
Other climate scientists, including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oceanographer Gregory C Johnson, say it doesn’t appear to be just El Nino. There are several marine heat waves or ocean warming spots that don’t fit an El Nino pattern, such as those in the northern Pacific near Alaska and off the coast of Spain, he said.
“This is an unusual pattern. This is an extreme event at a global scale” in areas that don’t fit with merely an El Nino, said Princeton University climate scientist Gabe Vecchi. “That is a huge, huge signal. I think it’s going to take some level of effort to understand it.”
The University of Colorado’s Karnauskas took global sea surface temperature anomalies over the past several weeks and subtracted the average temperature anomalies from earlier in the year to see where the sudden burst of warming is highest. He found a long stretch across the equator from South America to Africa, including both the Pacific and Indian oceans, responsible for much of the global temperature spike.
That area warmed four-tenths of a degree Celsius in just 10 to 14 days, which is highly unusual, Karnauskas said.
Part of that area is clearly a brewing El Nino, which scientists may confirm in the next couple months and they can see it gathering strength, Karnauskas said. But the area in the Indian Ocean is different and could be a coincidental independent increase or somehow connected to what may be a big El Nino, he said.
“We’re already starting at such an elevated background state, a baseline of of really warm global ocean temperatures, including in the tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean. And suddenly you add on a developing El Nino and now we’re like off the chart,” Karnauskas said.
It’s been about seven years since the last El Nino, and it was a whopper. The world has warmed in that seven years, especially the deeper ocean, which absorbs by far most of the heat energy from greenhouse gases, said Sarah Purkey, an oceanographer at the Scripps Institution for Oceanography. The ocean heat content, which measures the energy stored by the deep ocean, each year sets new record highs regardless of what’s happening on the surface.
Since that last El Nino, the global heat ocean content has increased .04 degrees Celsius (.07 degrees Fahrenheit), which may not sound like a lot but “it’s actually a tremendous amount of energy,” Purkey said. It’s about 30 to 40 zettajoules of heat, which is the energy equivalent of hundreds of millions of atomic bombs the size that leveled Hiroshima, she said.
On top of that warming deep ocean, the world had unusual cooling on the surface from La Nina for three years that sort of acted like a lid on a warming pot, scientists said. That lid is off.
“La Nina’s temporary grip on rising global temperatures has been released,” NOAA oceanographer Mike McPhaden said in an email. “One result is that March 2023 was the second highest March on record for global mean surface temperatures.”
If El Nino makes its heavily forecasted appearance later this year “what we are seeing now is just a prelude to more records that are in the pipeline,” McPhaden wrote.
Karnauskas said what’s likely to happen will be an “acceleration” of warming after the heat has been hidden for a few years.
Source- Jamaica Observer
US and South Korea agree key nuclear weapons deal
The US and South Korea have secured a landmark deal to counter the North Korean nuclear threat.
Washington has agreed to periodically deploy US nuclear-armed submarines to South Korea and involve Seoul in its nuclear planning operations.
In return, South Korea has agreed to not develop its own nuclear weapons.
The Washington Declaration will strengthen the allies' co-operation in deterring a North Korean attack, US President Joe Biden said.
Concern has been rising on both sides about the nuclear threat posed by North Korea. Pyongyang is developing tactical nuclear weapons that can target South Korea, and refining its long-range weapons that can reach the US mainland.
The US already has a treaty obligation to defend South Korea, and has previously pledged to use nuclear weapons if necessary. But some in South Korea have started to doubt that commitment and call for the country to pursue its own nuclear programme.
The South Korean President, Yoon Suk-yeol, who was at the White House for a state visit, said the Washington Declaration marked an "unprecedented" commitment by the US to enhance defence, deter attacks and protect US allies by using nuclear weapons.
China - clearly not pleased with the US stance - warned against "deliberately stirring up tensions, provoking confrontation and playing up threats".
The new agreement is a result of negotiations that took place over the course of several months, according to a senior administration official.
Under the new deal, the US will make its defence commitments more visible by sending a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea for the first time in 40 years, along with other strategic assets, including nuclear-capable bombers.
The two sides will also develop a Nuclear Consultative Group to discuss nuclear planning issues.
Politicians in Seoul have long been pushing Washington to involve them more in planning for how and when to use nuclear weapons against North Korea.
As North Korea's nuclear arsenal has grown in size and sophistication, South Koreans have grown wary of being kept in the dark over what would trigger Mr Biden to push the nuclear button on their behalf.
A fear that Washington might abandon Seoul has led to calls for South Korea to develop its own nuclear weapons.
But in January, Mr Yoon alarmed policymakers in Washington when he became the first South Korean president to put this idea back on the table in decades.
It suddenly became clear to the US that reassuring words and gestures would no longer work and if it was to dissuade South Korea from wanting to build its own bombs, it would have to offer something concrete.
Furthermore, Mr Yoon had made it clear that he expected to return home having made "tangible" progress.
Duyeon Kim, from the Centre for a New American Security, said it was a "big win" for South Korea to be involved in nuclear planning.
"Until now, tabletop exercises would end before Washington's decision to use nuclear weapons," said Ms Kim.
"The US had considered such information to be too classified to share, but it is important to practice and train for this scenario given the types of nuclear weapons North Korea is producing."
This new Nuclear Consultative Group ticks the box, providing the increased involvement the South Korean government has been asking for.
But the bigger question is whether it will quell the public's anxieties.
It does not ink a total commitment from the US that it would use nuclear weapons to defend South Korea if North Korea were to attack.
However, on Wednesday Mr Biden said: "A nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of whatever regime were to take such an action."
In return, the US has demanded that South Korea remain a non-nuclear state and a faithful advocate of the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. The US sees dissuading South Korea from going nuclear as essential, fearful that if it fails, other countries may follow in its footsteps.
But these US commitments are unlikely to fully satisfy the influential, and increasingly vocal, group of academics, scientists and members of South Korea's ruling party who have been pushing for Seoul to arm itself.
Dr Cheong Seong-chang, a leading proponent of South Korea going nuclear, said that while the declaration had many positive aspects, it was "extremely regrettable that South Korea had openly given up its right to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT]", adding that this had "further strengthened our nuclear shackles".
President Biden said the US was continuing efforts to get North Korea back to the negotiating table. Washington says Pyongyang has ignored numerous requests to talk without preconditions.
The US hopes to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, but last year the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared the country's nuclear status "irreversible".
Some experts say it now makes more sense to discuss arms control rather than denuclearisation.
Source- BBC
CARICOM condemns attack on Haiti's Prime Minister
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has condemned the armed attack on the Prime Minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, and his delegation of high officials in the city of Gonaives on New Year's Day, during the traditional ceremony commemorating the 218th anniversary of Haiti's independence.
The event, which included a Te Deum church service at the Gonaives Cathedral, was disrupted by volleys of automatic weapons in the surroundings of the church.
Henry was unable to deliver his public speech at the nearby Place des Armes Square, which normally follows the church service as part of the ceremony.
In a statement today, CARICOM said the reported death of a citizen during the incident heightens its concern at the continued deterioration of the security situation in the country.
“CARICOM urges the Haitian authorities to address this prevailing untenable security situation with urgency in order to restore a sense of safety and security to the country,” the statement read.
Haiti's president, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated on July 7 last year at the Haitian National Palace, his private quarters.
Source - The Gleaner