NEW DELHI: Residents of India’s capital New Delhi choked in a blanketing toxic smog Wednesday as worsening air pollution surged past 50 times the World Health Organization’s recommended daily maximum.

Many in the city cannot afford air filters, nor do they have homes they can effectively seal from the misery of foul smelling air blamed for thousands of premature deaths.

Cooler temperatures and slow-moving winds trap deadly pollutants each winter, stretching from mid-October until at least January.

At dawn on Wednesday, “hazardous” pollutant levels in parts of the sprawling urban area of more than 30 million people topped 806 micrograms per cubic metre, according to monitoring firm IQAir.

That is more than 53 times the World Health Organization recommended daily maximum of fine particulate matter -- dangerous cancer-causing microparticles known as PM2.5 pollutants that enter the bloodstream through the lungs.

By midday, when air usually is at its best, it eased to about 25-35 times above danger levels, depending on different districts.

The city is blanketed in acrid smog each year, primarily blamed on stubble burning by farmers in neighbouring regions to clear their fields for ploughing, as well as factories and traffic fumes.

‘Alarming’

But a report by The New York Times this month, based on air and soil samples it collected over five years, revealed the dangerous fumes also spewing from a power plant incinerating the city’s landfill garbage mountains.

Experts the newspaper spoke to said that the levels of heavy metals found were “alarming”.

Swirling white clouds of smog also delayed several flights across northern India.

The India Meteorological Department said that at least 18 regional airports had a visibility lower than 1,000 metres (1,093 yards) -- dropping below 500 metres in Delhi.

India’s Supreme Court last month ruled that clean air was a fundamental human right, ordering both the central government and state-level authorities to take action.

But critics say arguments between rival politicians heading neighbouring states -- as well as between central and state-level authorities -- have compounded the problem.

Politicians are accused of not wanting to anger key figures in their constituencies, particularly powerful farming groups.

City authorities have launched several initiatives to tackle pollution, which have done little in practice.

Government trucks are regularly used to spray water to briefly dampen the pollution.

A new scheme unveiled earlier this month to use three small drones to spray water mist was derided by critics as another “band-aid” solution to a public health crisis.

The WHO says that air pollution can trigger strokes, heart disease, lung cancer and other respiratory diseases.

It is particularly punishing for babies, children and the elderly.

A study in The Lancet medical journal attributed 1.67 million premature deaths to air pollution in the world’s most populous country in 2019.

The Washington Capitals traded a 2027 third-round pick and a 2025 fifth-round pick to the rival Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for forward Lars Eller, the team announced on Tuesday.

For the first time, a composite map of the world’s ecosystem assets has been produced, covering both marine and terrestrial realms. A report for the UNEP Division of Early Warning and Assessment by UNEP-WCMC presents global maps of assets such as biodiversity, freshwater resources and soil quality.

Natural capital is fundamental to human well-being. According to the Convention on Biological Diversity, at least 40 per cent of the world’s economy and 80 per cent of the needs of the poor are derived from biological resources. We are now facing a problem where natural capital has been harvested and degraded at a rate that threatens to undermine our well-being and future economic growth.

In their latest report UNEP-WCMC have combined information about key ecosystem assets into global maps covering terrestrial and marine realms. The assets included are freshwater resources, soil quality, organic carbon, terrestrial and marine biodiversity, and global fish catch (as a proxy for marine fish stocks). The report builds on a considerable body of work in the fields of natural capital accounting and the mapping of ecosystem services.

To read more and download the full report, please follow the link: http://www.unep-wcmc.org/news/towards-a-global-map-of-natural-capital

The investment, together with AMP’s renewed senior debt facility, provides AMP with a growth capital structure in excess of $60 million.

Here’s the good news: Experts predict that within the next four or five years, there will be more than 40 billion IoT devices hard at work — improving the safety, efficiency, reliability and productivity of the world’s enterprises.

Ascent Capital Group announced that its primary operating subsidiary, Monitronics International Inc., established a deal to acquire Security Networks for a total transaction price of $507.5 million.

Based in Oxford, Mich., with locations in Plano, Texas, and Charlotte, N.C., JLM has grown substantially since its founding in 1984 by Janet Mirku. 

The Nano-Lok^TM edge self-retracting lifeline is specifically designed for foot-level tie-off and sharp-edge applications.

The divestment of Corbion's emulsifiers business follows Corbion’s Advance 2025 strategy, announced in March 2020, focusing on further growing a set of core competencies built around advanced expertise in fermentation that are essential to fulfilling the company's central purpose, to "preserve what matters."   

Headquartered in Lenexa, Kan., PATCO manufactures emulsifiers at two US-based facilities for both food and non-food applications, with an extensive distribution footprint servicing customers primarily across North America. 

The offer price represents an 18% premium to the 30-trading day volume-weighted average closing share price of Innophos’ common stock ended Sept. 9, 2019, the last trading day prior to published market speculation regarding a potential transaction involving the company.

In conjunction with the completion of the transaction, Richard Hooper has been appointed CEO of Innophos, effective immediately. Hooper is an industry veteran with 40 years of specialty materials experience.

Stellex’s partnership with J. Skinner will support investment into production capacity expansion, increased automation, and new product development. 

In a move to reshape flooring distribution, Transom Capital Group has announced the formation of Artivo Surfaces, a new parent company that brings together distributors Virginia Tile and Galleher. This strategic consolidation creates a multi-regional powerhouse with 48 locations across 18 states, offering an extensive range of flooring solutions from coast to coast. 

Artivo Surfaces, the Transom Capital-backed parent company of Virginia Tile, Galleher, and Trinity Hardwood, is acquiring Tom Duffy Company, a strategic move that significantly strengthens Artivo’s position as a market leader in the tile and flooring industry.

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Police tape blocks access from a street leading to the building complex where the Capital Gazette is located on June 29, 2018, in Annapolis, Md. The suspect barricaded a back door in an effort to "kill as many people as he could kill," police said.; Credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Jury selection in the trial of the gunman who fatally shot five employees at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Md., on June 28, 2018 gets underway on Wednesday.

Jarrod Ramos, 41, has pleaded guilty — but not criminally responsible for reason of insanity — in the killings of John McNamara, Rob Hiaasen, Gerald Fischman, Wendi Winters and Rebecca Smith. The mass shooting was one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in modern U.S. history.

"There is a sense that you don't want this to be the thing that makes your life change," Phil Davis, the paper's former criminal justice reporter who now works at the Baltimore Sun, told NPR.

Davis was hiding under his desk while live tweeting the shooting that day. Later, he was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team that put out a paper the very next day.

"That's kind of what drove me to continue as a criminal justice reporter. Once I got the feeling of like, 'no we're going to get back to exactly what we do. We're going to tackle this how we would even if it wasn't us and try to go at it from the perspective of a local community newspaper,'" Davis said.

Bruce Shapiro, the executive director of the Columbia University's Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, said what made this shooting reverberate in newsrooms across the U.S. was "the idea of a newsroom full of colleagues being murdered just because they are journalists. It's an identity based attack."

Attacks on journalists in the U.S. haven't stopped there. During his time in office, President Donald Trump tweeted that the news media is the enemy of the people. Associated Press journalists were threatened and had their equipment damaged by supporters of Trump during the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6. And last year, during the protests in Minneapolis over the murder of George Floyd by police, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker reported at least 160 threats to journalists across the country in one week--mostly by police.

Shapiro says the trial is a reminder to the public of the risks and costs local reporters take daily.

"The reality is that local newsrooms all over the country cover extraordinarily difficult events affecting their own families, neighbors, kids, schools whether that is wildfires, whether that is mass shooting, whether that is COVID-19," Shapiro said.

The Capital Gazette trial has been delayed several times due to COVID-19, turnover in the public defender and state's attorney's offices, and rounds of court hearings. Davis says he hopes the long-awaited trial brings some closure.

"Certainly for the families of the victims themselves, I look forward to being on the other end of this trial," he said. "And whatever the outcome is, being able to embrace them and support them just to bring them some sort of closure."

Today, less than a week before the third anniversary of the shooting, the judge has called a pool of 300 people to determine the 12 that will sit as jurors. They will then determine Ramos's mental sanity during the attack.

Steve Mercer, a former Maryland public defender, said the defense has the burden to prove Ramos's sanity. He said that in cases like these, the defense will look at motive and intent. One possible motive, Mercer says, is Ramos' "long-simmering feud with the paper."

Ramos sued the paper for defamation in 2012 after reporters wrote about his guilty plea on charges of criminal harassment and 90-day suspended jail sentence. But that motive might not hold up.

"I think there's a big gap between sort of being upset about a story that's published ... and then going in and committing a mass shooting," Mercer said.

Mercer adds what presents a challenge to both the defense and prosecution is Ramos's conduct after the shooting. He was found by police under a desk at the scene of the shooting with a pump-action shotgun which was purchased legally a few years before.

"The defense may point to it and say that it shows just a disconnect from reality and a lack of awareness of what was going on," Mercer said.

Circuit Court Judge Judge Michael Wachs will ultimately decide if he ends up in prison or a state psychiatric hospital.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Priyank Kharge in his keynote at ET GCC Annual Conclave 2024 reiterates the purpose to establish Karnataka as a knowledge and skill capital topped with innovation and GCC policy for investments to follow.

Growing demand for specialty ingredients is driving expansion of the ingredient-solutions provider’s manufacturing capacity.

UK intellectual property investment group Tekcapital PLC has announced a major expansion of its MicroSalt brand.

Darrell Jones found himself in quite a pickle back in 1986. At the time, Jones was working for close friend and mentor Louie Garner at Garner’s contracting business.

As consumers are spending less on discretionary items and more on essentials, experts note that mass merchandisers are capitalizing on value, variety and services.

Creative cash-out allows experienced sponsor to recap investors while finalizing $87 million construction schedule

Benna Lehrer to lead C4C's Board of Directors

The transaction paves the way for Nexseer to continue its growth plans as a well-capitalized independent equipment finance platform

Dresser Utility Solutions invests in future growth with $335 million credit facility

Trinity Street Capital Partners announces the expansion of it's non-recourse construction finance programs, through out the United States.

This remarkable achievement is evidence of Ticino Management, Inc.'s unwavering commitment and expertise. The secured funding will significantly impact social welfare and humanitarian efforts in Barbados.

How Ari Stiegler's Vision and Leadership are Driving Innovation and Transforming Industries

Is Blockchain the hero of the villain?

SB Capital Management Inc., prominent multi-national investment firm, will be introducing their new SBCoin this summer with an ICO and exciting rollout. Full implementation into every day life with the SB Debit Card is only the beginning.

Discover the Rich Heritage and Expertise of Donghai, the Heart of China's Natural Crystal Industry

Eminova Holdings International, an International Finance Investment and Consultancy firm based in London-United Kingdom, has signed an Capital Raise agreement with MH Mena LTD, London.

SocialPilot Reviews delivers enterprise-grade capabilities to gather and manage reviews for multiple business listings through a unified platform with a high ROI.

Navigating Cryptocurrency Venture Capital and Emerging Trends

Jenny Lefcourt, partner at Freestyle VC and cofounder of All Raise, says that even as a serial entrepreneur herself, she long underestimated how little venture capital funding goes to female startup founders compared to the money men get. She believes unconscious biases, an industry built on intuition, and historical dynamics all contribute to this inequity. They also affect the low numbers of women in decision-making roles at VC firms. Lefcourt explains the ways the industry can actively reduce this gap.

Hubert Joly, former chairman and CEO of Best Buy, says that now is the time for companies to get serious about operating to benefit not just shareholders but also employees, customers and broader society. In the face of environmental crisis, racial turmoil, and rising economic inequality, he argues that leaders shouldn't debate whether or when to embrace this new version of capitalism. They should focus on how to do it. He says this starts with having a clear purpose and ensuring that everyone in the organization connects with it and one another. It also involves offering fair pay and opportunities for advancement and working with, not against, consumers, the community, the competition. He shares how these strategies helped turn Best Buy around despite the rise of Amazon. Joly is the author of the book “The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism” and the HBR article “How to Lead in the Stakeholder Era.”

Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, led a dazzling career in consumer goods, from Procter & Gamble to Nestlé to the British multinational. His experience fending off a hostile takeover bid taught him that the doctrine of shareholder capitalism is wrong. He believes there’s a better way of doing business, one that embraces all stakeholders — not just stockholders — and improves the environment. He cofounded the consultancy IMAGINE to further sustainable goals, and he shares his advice for the next generation of leaders. With Andrew Winston, Polman wrote the new book “Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More than They Take”.

With all the hype in the startup world around unicorns and hypergrowth, entrepreneurs feel enormous pressure to raise massive amounts of cash from venture capitalists. But now, as interest rates have risen, a lot of that funding has dried up. And a growing number of founders are seeking ways to scale without burning through cash to acquire users. Mike Salguero is the CEO and founder of the meat subscription service ButcherBox. After a negative experience with venture capital at his prior company, Salguero pledged to grow his new startup without it. That meant a "Box One Profitable" strategy built on the creative leverage of influencers, laser focus on costs, and making tough decisions during the pandemic. Salguero shares how he grew a $600 million company in seven years without outside money.

Venture capital firms notoriously embrace risk and take big swings, hoping that one startup will become a monster hit that pays for many other failed investments. This VC approach scares established companies, but it shouldn’t. Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Ilya Strebulaev says that VC firms have proven best practices that all leaders should apply in their own companies. He explains exactly how VC’s operationalize risk, embrace disagreement over consensus, and stay agile in their decision-making—all valuable lessons that apply outside of Silicon Valley. With author Alex Dang, Strebulaev cowrote the new book The Venture Mindset: How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Growth and the HBR article "Make Decisions with a VC Mindset."

Cathie Wood's Ark Venture Fund aims to disrupt venture capital by granting retail investors access to high-growth startups, tripling assets to $70 million despite lagging S&P 500.

Cloud-based BMC Helix and Control-M deliver mission-critical capabilities for today and set up future AI use cases for success

This document is only available in PDF format.

TORONTO – The Capital Markets Tribunal is seeking applications for membership to the Securities Proceedings Advisory Committee (SPAC).

HeadnotePursuant to National Policy 11-203 Process for Exemptive Relief Applications in Multiple Jurisdictions -- Relief from the prohibition on the use of corporate officer titles by certain registered individuals in respect of institutional clients -- Relief does not extend to interact