The Delaware Division of Revenue is warning the public of a new tax scam that’s happening in Delaware. Victims receive a letter from the “Tax Processing Unit” that threatens property seizure and wage garnishment unless the victim calls a toll-free number to “avoid enforcement.”

Revenue Announces New HSCA Rate Effective January 2025 Statewide, DE (October 28, 2024) – Division of Revenue Director Kathy Revel today announced that businesses subject to the Hazardous Substance Cleanup Act (HSCA) will see an increase in last year’s rate from 0.675% to 1.120%. The new tax rate will go into effect on January 1, […]

Read the in depth Review of ASUS ROG Strix Scar 15 Laptops. Know detailed info about ASUS ROG Strix Scar 15 configuration, design and performance quality along with pros & cons, Digit rating, verdict based on user opinions/feedback.

In a horrifying incident at a fair in Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, a teenage girl's hair became entangled in the roller of a swing, resulting in her entire scalp being ripped out.

In a unique online romance scam, a man in Tianjin, China, fell victim to a bizarre "marriage bed burning" ritual, costing him Rs 11 lakh.

[State Department] U.S. Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Cindy Dyer will travel to Madagascar November 13-16 and South Africa November 17-21.

This is the 17th installment of The Rationalist, my column for the Times of India.

One of my favourite English words comes from chess. If it is your turn to move, but any move you make makes your position worse, you are in ‘Zugzwang’. Narendra Modi was in zugzwang after the Pulwama attacks a few days ago—as any Indian prime minister in his place would have been.

An Indian PM, after an attack for which Pakistan is held responsible, has only unsavoury choices in front of him. He is pulled in two opposite directions. One, strategy dictates that he must not escalate. Two, politics dictates that he must.

Let’s unpack that. First, consider the strategic imperatives. Ever since both India and Pakistan became nuclear powers, a conventional war has become next to impossible because of the threat of a nuclear war. If India escalates beyond a point, Pakistan might bring their nuclear weapons into play. Even a limited nuclear war could cause millions of casualties and devastate our economy. Thus, no matter what the provocation, India needs to calibrate its response so that the Pakistan doesn’t take it all the way.

It’s impossible to predict what actions Pakistan might view as sufficient provocation, so India has tended to play it safe. Don’t capture territory, don’t attack military assets, don’t kill civilians. In other words, surgical strikes on alleged terrorist camps is the most we can do.

Given that Pakistan knows that it is irrational for India to react, and our leaders tend to be rational, they can ‘bleed us with a thousand cuts’, as their doctrine states, with impunity. Both in 2001, when our parliament was attacked and the BJP’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee was PM, and in 2008, when Mumbai was attacked and the Congress’s Manmohan Singh was PM, our leaders considered all the options on the table—but were forced to do nothing.

But is doing nothing an option in an election year?

Leave strategy aside and turn to politics. India has been attacked. Forty soldiers have been killed, and the nation is traumatised and baying for blood. It is now politically impossible to not retaliate—especially for a PM who has criticized his predecessor for being weak, and portrayed himself as a 56-inch-chested man of action.

I have no doubt that Modi is a rational man, and knows the possible consequences of escalation. But he also knows the possible consequences of not escalating—he could dilute his brand and lose the elections. Thus, he is forced to act. And after he acts, his Pakistan counterpart will face the same domestic pressure to retaliate, and will have to attack back. And so on till my home in Versova is swallowed up by a nuclear crater, right?

Well, not exactly. There is a way to resolve this paradox. India and Pakistan can both escalate, not via military actions, but via optics.

Modi and Imran Khan, who you’d expect to feel like the loneliest men on earth right now, can find sweet company in each other. Their incentives are aligned. Neither man wants this to turn into a full-fledged war. Both men want to appear macho in front of their domestic constituencies. Both men are masters at building narratives, and have a pliant media that will help them.

Thus, India can carry out a surgical strike and claim it destroyed a camp, killed terrorists, and forced Pakistan to return a braveheart prisoner of war. Pakistan can say India merely destroyed two trees plus a rock, and claim the high moral ground by returning the prisoner after giving him good masala tea. A benign military equilibrium is maintained, and both men come out looking like strong leaders: a win-win game for the PMs that avoids a lose-lose game for their nations. They can give themselves a high-five in private when they meet next, and Imran can whisper to Modi, “You’re a good spinner, bro.”

There is one problem here, though: what if the optics don’t work?

If Modi feels that his public is too sceptical and he needs to do more, he might feel forced to resort to actual military escalation. The fog of politics might obscure the possible consequences. If the resultant Indian military action causes serious damage, Pakistan will have to respond in kind. In the chain of events that then begins, with body bags piling up, neither man may be able to back down. They could end up as prisoners of circumstance—and so could we.

***

Also check out:

Why Modi Must Learn to Play the Game of Chicken With Pakistan—Amit Varma
The Two Pakistans—Episode 79 of The Seen and the Unseen
India in the Nuclear Age—Episode 80 of The Seen and the Unseen

The India Uncut Blog © 2010 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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Allegro part of DPI does not support scaling above 150%

Hello All,

I'm a novice to this forum and probably this subject has been already discussed here.

My company has purchased OrCAD Capture 17.4 tools that have a new GUI if compared to my earlier used OrCAD Capture 9.2. I have been using Capture 9.2 for ~18 years and its GUI is really convenient. The GUI of 17.4 looks to be a modern one with new icons and really has improved features and new capabilities.

However, my main complain about GUI 17.4 is that the schematic windows cannot be cascaded. Although they can be set floating, this is even more annoying because all toolbars remain in the Capture window and when you select a tool, the Capture window pops over already open schematic window and you need a lot of useless extra clicks to return back to the currently edited schematic page. I always used cascading of schematic windows before because my complex designs includes many pages, not speaking about the library windows that are typically open simulatneously. My view is that the lack of CASCADING in Capture GUI 17.4 is critical and unacceptable for complex projects, and I would very highly appreciate if the Cadence guys will return back the CASCADING capability for schematic pages. In case this will be done, this will make the GUI really great and comfortable to use.

Does anybody have opinion on this issue?

Many thanks,

Pavel

Can anyone tell me how i can supress few strings or integers while reading with $sscanf.

I read a line from a file into a string. there are few strings and integers seperated by white spaces in the line. I am interested in one string which comes at postion 5 in the line. how can i suppress all other strings and integers with $scanf.

i tried the following syntax but it dint work.

 $sscanf(line,"* * * * %s",string_arg);

i am tring to supress first 4 integers/strings in the line.

hello

is there a way to scale a footprint of a symbol?

scaling a footprint means moving all the pad locations of the symbol by +x% or -x%. 

regards

masa

Pedro Calado, vice-president of Madeira’s regional government, tells Sebastian Shehadi about the island's capacity for more upmarket tourism and its ongoing struggle to gain financial independence from Portugal. 

Social Security recipients will receive a bump in funds soon and scammers may try to target them.

Even post-spooky season, GFN Thursday has some treats for GeForce NOW members: a new batch of 17 games joining the cloud in November. Catch the five games available to stream this week, including Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the highly anticipated next installment in BioWare’s beloved fantasy role-playing game series. Players who purchased the GeForce NOW Read Article

Check here each week to keep up with the latest from John MacArthur's pulpit at Grace Community Church.

Check here each week to keep up with the latest from John MacArthur's pulpit at Grace Community Church.

Check here each week to keep up with the latest from John MacArthur's pulpit at Grace Community Church.

Nairobi — A prominent human rights group is calling for the deployment of peacekeepers in Sudan, following a recent wave of attacks on civilians in Al Jazirah state widely blamed on the Rapid Support Forces, one of the warring sides in the country’s ongoing conflict. Human Rights Watch says the situation has become so grim that a mission is needed to protect the population.  According to a local pro-democracy group, the Wad Madani Resistance Committee, 169 people have been killed since the violence started in southeastern Jazirah state on Oct. 20.   The attacks began after a commander for the Rapid Support Forces defected and joined the Sudanese army. Rights groups report that in response, RSF forces entered villages and towns in the area where the commander was from and carried out targeted killings and abuse.   Laetitia Bader, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Africa division, said the violations have added more problems for a population reeling from more than 18 months of war.   "Sudanese women's rights groups have been documenting cases of sexual violence against women and girls in these towns and villages. And we're talking here about over 30 towns and villages which have been attacked in recent weeks, and these attacks are ongoing,” Bader said. “It led to massive displacement of the civilian population in an area where people had already fled to and from. So it's just adding to the layers of suffering."  The RSF has denied attacking communities in Jazirah state and has accused Sudanese forces of arming local communities.   The RSF and Sudan’s military have been at war since April of last year. Rival generals lead the parties and are locked in a power struggle.  Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch and other observers are calling for the deployment of peacekeepers to Jazirah and other parts of Sudan, in hopes of protecting civilians.   Getting a presence on the ground could deter further attacks and help monitor humanitarian obstruction, Bader said, and also play a role in bolstering local cease-fire efforts and efforts by emergency response teams to provide assistance.  “Right now the problem is that what is happening at the local level cannot act alone," Bader added.  Ahmed Hashi, a Horn of Africa political and security commentator, said troops are needed, and strong action must be taken against the leaders of the warring groups.   "There is a need to send at least 50,000 United Nations soldiers. There is a need to take the criminal generals to the International Criminal Court and issue a warrant for their arrest,” Hashi said. “It is important for the United Nations to put its foot down on conflicts because they are going to metastasize into a massive humanitarian catastrophe."  In a report issued last month, the office of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed shock at the human rights violations often witnessed in Sudan’s western Darfur region being repeated in the Jazirah area.  The United Nations Security Council is slated to discuss the report on Sudan later this month.

Plateau State Governor, Caleb Mutfwang and the Commissioner of Police, Emmanuel Adesina, on Tuesday, dismissed the bomb scare in the state. The government, in a statement denying the explosion in Jos, the state capital, described it as “only a bomb scare.” This is despite reports of an explosion said to have occurred in the city

London — A British soldier accused of passing sensitive information to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps pleaded guilty Monday to escaping from prison while awaiting trial. Daniel Abed Khalife is on trial at London's Woolwich Crown Court, accused of collecting sensitive information between May 2019 and January 2022. Khalife, who is no longer a member of the British armed forces, also denies leaving a fake bomb on a desk and absconding from his barracks in 2023. Prosecutors had also alleged Khalife escaped from London's Wandsworth prison in September 2023 by tying himself to the bottom of a delivery van, sparking a brief nationwide manhunt. The 23-year-old had originally pleaded not guilty to escaping from lawful custody but changed his plea to guilty Monday after having given evidence for several days earlier this month. Khalife is also charged with gathering information that might be useful to an enemy, namely Iran, obtaining information likely to be useful for terrorism and perpetrating a bomb hoax. He still denies those three charges and his trial continues.

LONDON — The head of the Church of England, spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, is under pressure to resign after an investigation found that he failed to inform police about serial physical and sexual abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps as soon as he became aware of it. Some members of the General Synod, the church's national assembly, have started a petition calling on Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to step down, saying he had "lost the confidence of his clergy." The petition had garnered more than 1,800 signatures on Change.org by late morning London time on Monday. Compounding the pressure, a senior cleric added her voice to those who believe he should resign. Helen-Ann Hartley, the bishop of Newcastle, told the BBC that Welby's position is "untenable.'' Calls for Welby's resignation have grown since Thursday, when the church released the results of an independent review into John Smyth, who sexually, psychologically and physically abused about 30 boys and young men in the United Kingdom and 85 in Africa over five decades. The 251-page report concluded that Welby failed to report Smyth to authorities when he was informed of the abuse in August 2013, soon after he became Archbishop of Canterbury. Welby last week took responsibility for not ensuring that the allegations were pursued as "energetically" as they should have been after he learned of the abuse but said he had decided not to resign. On Monday, his office issued a statement reiterating Welby's "horror at the scale of John Smyth's egregious abuse." "As he has said, he had no awareness or suspicion of the allegations before he was told in 2013 — and therefore, having reflected, he does not intend to resign," the statement said. "He hopes the Makin Review supports the ongoing work of building a safer church here and around the world." Church officials were first made aware of the abuse in 1982, when they received the results of an internal investigation into Smyth. The recipients of that report "participated in an active cover-up" to prevent its findings from coming to light, the Makin Review found. Between 1984 and 2001, Smyth moved to Zimbabwe and subsequently relocated to South Africa. He continued to abuse boys and young men in Zimbabwe and there is evidence that the abuse continued in South Africa until he died in August 2018. Smyth's abuse wasn't made public until a 2017 investigation by Britain's Channel 4 television, which led Hampshire Police to start an investigation. Police were planning to question Smyth at the time of his death and had been preparing to extradite him. The Makin Review found that if Smyth had been reported to police in 2013, it could have helped to uncover the truth, prevented further abuse and led to a possible criminal conviction. "In effect, three and a half years was lost, a time within which John Smyth could have been brought to justice and any abuse he was committing in South Africa discovered and stopped," the review found. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the Church of England and is seen as the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, which has more than 85 million members in 165 countries. He is considered first among equals with respect to the communion's other primates.

London — Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, head of the Church of England and spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, resigned Tuesday after an investigation found that he failed to tell police about serial physical and sexual abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer camps as soon as he became aware of it.  Pressure on Welby had been building since Thursday, when release of the inquiry's findings kindled anger about a lack of accountability at the highest reaches of the church. Helen-Ann Hartley, the bishop of Newcastle, said Monday that his position was "untenable" after some members of the church's national assembly started a petition calling on Welby to step down because he had "lost the confidence of his clergy."  "I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honored to serve," Welby said in a statement.  The strongest outcry came from the victims of John Smyth, a prominent attorney who abused teenage boys and young men at Christian summer camps in Britain, Zimbabwe and South Africa over five decades. Andrew Morse, who was repeatedly beaten by Smyth over a period of five years, said that resigning was a chance for Welby to start repairing the damage caused by the church's handling of historical abuse cases more broadly.  "I believe that now is an opportunity for him to resign,'' Morse told the BBC before Welby stepped down. "I say opportunity in the sense that this would be an opportunity for him to stand with the victims of the Smyth abuse and all victims that have not been treated properly by the Church of England in their own abuse cases."  Welby's resignation comes against the backdrop of widespread historical sexual abuse in the Church of England. A 2022 report by the Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse found that deference to the authority of priests, taboos surrounding the discussion of sexuality and a culture that gave more support to alleged perpetrators than their victims helped make the Church of England Church of England "a place where abusers could hide." 

IQUIQUE, Chile — Over a thousand years ago, the hundreds of giant geoglyphs carved into the desert in northern Chile were a bustling scene. They marked sources of water in the vast arid landscape and were where locals came together to trade skins, animals and fish. Now the carvings are scarred with hundreds of tire tracks from motorcycles and off-road vehicles tearing through the art creations in the landscape and permanently disfiguring them. "It's practically destroyed by motorcycles, off-roaders," said Jose Barraza, general director of the regional national patrimony office. He said various groups were trying to preserve the site to prevent any more destruction - but also without restoring it to its former glory, to show the error of people's ways in the future. "[It] will be an example that shows future generations what not to do with our heritage, no matter how painful or how much anger, discomfort or resentment we feel towards it," he said. Local resident Angelo Araya says the community has been working with a local museum and authorities to try and "put an end to the destruction." The goal, Araya says, is to stop motorcycle and off-road vehicles from damaging the site further and "to make everyone aware that this is not just a heritage site, but that it belongs to all of us." The site has gone through many phases, going from a place to barter, to an abandoned site, to one where people were looking for gold. Eventually Chile's national forests association CONAF turned the area into part of the Pampa del Tamarugal National Reserve. Sand board instructor Franco Diaz said the government should physically close off access to the sites as the geoglyphs are difficult to spot. "If a jeep driver goes behind the hill, he won't notice if there's a geoglyph," Diaz said. "They should close the perimeter and protect these sites that are over 1,000 years old."

La enseñanza bíblica en profundidad de John MacArthur lleva la verdad transformadora de la Palabra de Dios a millones de personas cada día.

La enseñanza bíblica en profundidad de John MacArthur lleva la verdad transformadora de la Palabra de Dios a millones de personas cada día.

The police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group raided a SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card scam hub in Pasay last week.

DAMASAK, Nigeria — When Boko Haram launched an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria in 2010, Abdulhameed Salisu packed his bag and fled from his hometown of Damasak in the country's battered Borno state.  The 45-year-old father of seven came back with his family early last year. They are among thousands of Nigerians taken back from displacement camps to their villages, hometowns or newly built settlements known as “host communities” under a resettlement program that analysts say is being rushed to suggest the conflict with the Islamic militants is nearly over.  Across Borno, dozens of displacement camps have been shut down, with authorities claiming they are no longer needed and that most places from where the displaced fled are now safe.  But many of the displaced say it’s not safe to go back.  Boko Haram — Nigeria’s homegrown jihadis — took up arms in 2009 to fight against Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law, or Sharia. The conflict, now Africa's longest struggle with militancy, has spilled into Nigeria's northern neighbors.  Some 35,000 civilians have been killed and more than 2 million have been displaced in the northeastern region, according to U.N. numbers. The 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram in the village of Chibok in Borno state — the epicenter of the conflict — shocked the world.  Borno state alone has nearly 900,000 internally displaced people in displacement camps, with many others absorbed in local communities. So far this year, at least 1,600 civilians have been killed in militant attacks in Borno state, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit.  And in a state where at least 70% of the population depends on agriculture, dozens of farmers have also been killed by the extremists or abducted from their farmland in the last year.  In May, hundreds of hostages, mostly women and children who were held captive for months or years by Boko Haram were rescued from a forest enclave and handed over to authorities, the army said.  In September, at least 100 villagers were killed by suspected Boko Haram militants who opened fire on a market, on worshippers and in people’s homes in the Tarmuwa council area of the neighboring Yobe state, west of Borno.  Analysts say that a forced resettlement could endanger the local population as there is still inadequate security across the hard-hit region.  Salisu says he wastes away his days in a resettlement camp in Damasak, a garrison town in Borno state of about 200,000 residents, close to the border with Niger.  Food is getting increasingly difficult to come by and Salisu depends on handouts from the World Food Program and other aid organizations. He longs to find work.  “We are begging the government to at least find us a means of livelihood instead of staying idle and waiting for whenever food comes,” he said.  On a visit last week to Damasak, Cindy McCain, the WFP chief, pledged the world would not abandon the Nigerian people as she called for more funding to support her agency's aid operations.  “We are going to stay here and do the very best we can to end hunger,” McCain told The Associated Press as she acknowledged the funding shortages. “How do I take food from the hungry and give it to the starving,” she said.  Resettlement usually involves the displaced being taken in military trucks back to their villages or “host communities." The Borno state government has promised to provide returnees with essentials to help them integrate into these areas, supported by aid groups.  The government says the displacement camps are no longer sustainable.  “What we need now is ... durable solutions,” Borno governor Babagana Zulum told McCain during her visit.  As the resettlement got underway, one in five displaced persons stayed back in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, and nearby towns but were left without any support for local integration, the Global Protection Cluster, a network of non-government organizations and U.N. agencies, said last December.  Many others have crossed the border to the north, to settle as refugees in neighboring Niger, Chad or Cameroon. The three countries have registered at least 52,000 Nigerian refugees since January 2023, according to the U.N. refugee agency — nearly twice the number registered in the 22 months before that.  A rushed closure of displacement camps and forced resettlement puts the displaced people at risk again from militants still active in their home areas — or forces them to “cut deals” with jihadis to be able to farm or fish, the International Crisis Group warned in a report earlier this year.  That could make the extremists consolidate their presence in those areas, the group warned. Boko Haram, which in 2016 split into two main factions, continues to ambush security convoys and raid villages.  Abubakar Kawu Monguno, head of the Center for Disaster Risk Management at the University of Maiduguri, said the best option is for government forces to intensify their campaign to eliminate the militants or “push them to surrender.”  After not being able to access their farms because of rampant attacks by militants, some farmers in Damasak and other parts of Mobbar district returned to work their land last year, armed with seedlings provided by the government.  Salisu was one of them.  Then a major flood struck in September, collapsing a key dam and submerging about 40% of Maiduguri's territory. Thirty people were killed and more than a million others were affected, authorities said.  Farms that feed the state were ruined, including Salisu's. His hopes for a good rice harvest were washed away. Now he lines up to get food at a Damasak food hub.  “Since Boko Haram started, everything else stopped here," he said. “There is nothing on the ground and there are no jobs.”  Maryam Abdullahi also lined up at a WFP hub in Damasak with other women, waiting for bags of rice and other food items she desperately needs for her family of eight. Her youngest is 6 years old.  The donations barely last halfway through the month, she said, but she still waited in the scorching heat.  What little money she has she uses to buy yams to fry and sell to sustain her family, but it’s nowhere enough. Her only wish is to be able to get a “proper job” so she and her children would feel safe, she said.  “We either eat in the morning for strength for the rest of the day or ... we eat only at night,” Abdullahi said. 

The Great Mosque, in all its majestic grandeur, is less enticing if you're an American woman who somehow finds herself inside it.

Israel’s counterattacks on Iran underscore high stakes in Middle East.

[Dabanga] Melbourne, Australia -- A 52-year-old man was jailed in Australia today, after he deceived his Sudanese wife into leaving Australia, and subsequently left her stranded in Sudan. A Sudanese family law expert has hailed the verdict as "a victory for women". The man, who is an Australian citizen, was charged by Australian Federal Police in 2022, under exit trafficking legislation, enacted by Australia to combat human trafficking that pivots on the departure, instead of the arrival of the victim. Neither names may be revealed for

Everything is at stake. Everything is at stake with nuclear weapons. While working as a nuclear war planner for the Kennedy administration, Daniel Ellsberg was shown a document calculating that a U.S. nuclear attack on communist countries would result in 600 million dead. As he put it later: “A hundred Holocausts.” That was in 1961. […]

The United Nations continues to be virtually paralyzed – and remains politically impotent amidst two raging conflicts—as Russia and Israel keep defying the world body. The killings of civilians and the destruction of cities, particularly by Israel, are devastating and continue despite repeated warnings from the UN, its humanitarian agencies, the International Criminal Court (ICC), […]

Kremlin denies Putin spoke with Trump over de-escalation in Ukraine

Church of England head Justin Welby resigns over handling of sex abuse scandal

Angelina Jolie received an Oscar for film 'Girl, Interrupted'Angelina Jolie has responded to the Oscar buzz surrounding her latest released film, Maria. Amid all the hype, Jolie feels ‘very nice’, but she is far happier to have been a part of a movie which gave her an opportunity of...

Ryan Reynolds shares views on Eddie Murphy's Oscar snub for 'Nutty Professor'Ryan Reynolds has recently expressed his disappointment over the Academy Awards for overlooking Eddie Murphy’s performances in Nutty Professor.Speaking on Variety Awards Circuit podcast, the Deadpool & Wolverine...

Some of the creeping impacts of this triple crisis are possibly the most debilitating: Africa is the most severely impacted region by desertification and land degradation, with approximately 45% of its land area affected. In the Horn of Africa and the Sahel alone, it imposes food shortages on more than 23 million people. Just last […]

Although classified as a compact tropical cyclone and considered one of the smallest in the North Atlantic, Hurricane Oscar has caused considerable damage in eastern Cuba since it made landfall on October 20, 2024. Cuban authorities have confirmed that the death toll has risen to seven, in additional to the damage in infrastructure. Communications and […]