Chains like Starbucks are adding protein-packed options, while Chick-fil-A and Panda Express are highlighting existing menu items that fit the trend.
Chains like Starbucks are adding protein-packed options, while Chick-fil-A and Panda Express are highlighting existing menu items that fit the trend.
The puerile standoff between the US and Russia ought to alert a slumbering public to a risk that is in many ways greater than during the cold war
Nuclear weapons – their lethal menace, dark history and future spread – are back in the headlines again and, as usual, the news is worrying, bordering on desperate. Russia’s decision last week to formally abandon the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty banning medium- and short-range nuclear missiles completes the demolition of a key pillar of global arms control. It will accelerate an already frantic nuclear arms race in Europe and Asia at a moment when US and Russian leaders are taunting each other like schoolboys.
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has repeatedly threatened the west with nuclear weapons during his war in Ukraine. Last November, Russian forces fired their new Oreshnik hypersonic, nuclear-capable intermediate-range missile at Dnipro. It travels “like a meteorite” at 10 times the speed of sound and can reach any city in Europe, Putin boasted – which, if true, is a clear INF violation. Moscow blames its decision to ditch the treaty on hostile Nato actions. Yet it has long bypassed it in practice, notably by basing missiles in Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave on the Baltic sea, and Belarus.
Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator
Australia’s Tony Hemming has resigned from his position as the chief curator, the Pakistan Cricket Board announced on Saturday.
He was appointed as chief curator in July last year as no extension was given to previous chief curator Agha Zahid.
“One of Hemming’s immediate tasks will be to prepare pitches for the upcoming five ICC World Test Championship matches against Bangladesh [two in August/September] and England [three in October]. Hemming will also oversee pitch preparations for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025, which Pakistan will host from Feb 19 to March 9,” the PCB had said at the time.
“Hemming is a highly respected curator with nearly four decades of experience. He has worked at various iconic cricket grounds in Australia, including Melbourne, Perth and Tasmania, as well as in countries such as Bangladesh, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where he was the ICC Head Curator from 2007 to 2017 in Dubai.
“During his time with the ICC, Hemming also oversaw pitch preparation at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, which was one of Pakistan’s home [series] venues between 2009 and 2019,” the PCB statement had further said.
In the frenzy of racism and culture warring, the issue of why hotels are used gets overlooked
A broad section of Britain’s right has spent the summer behaving as if it would like a repeat of last year’s racist riots. As politicians and commentators cry “tinderbox Britain” – are they warning us, or willing it on? – far-right extremists have been actively trying to stoke violence. This year, they have pinned their hopes on asylum hotels, an issue where public fears over crime, immigration and the welfare state conveniently converge.
In some places, far-right activists have piggybacked on protests prompted by local grievances. The most significant this year was in Epping, Essex, after an alleged sexual assault by an asylum seeker led to demonstrations that turned violent when they were joined by members of various far-right groups. A similar pattern has unfolded in London’s Canary Wharf, after untrue rumours that some of the Epping hotel residents were being moved there. In other cases, far-right activists have themselves organised the protests. A call has gone out among their online networks for gatherings this weekend in several parts of England.
Daniel Trilling is the author of Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe and Bloody Nasty People: The Rise of Britain’s Far Right
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LAHORE — (Staff Reporter M.Shezad) Punjab Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs Malik Faisal Ayub Khokhar announced that the Punjab Stadium will be upgraded to meet international standards, making it a significant addition to Pakistan’s growing portfolio of world-class sports facilities. Presiding over a high-level meeting at the National Hockey Stadium on Monday, the minister…
PTI leaders Zartaj Gul and Ejaz Chaudhry filed appeals in the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Saturday against their convictions by anti-terrorism courts (ATC) in May 9 riots cases.
On May 9, 2023, PTI supporters, protesting party founder Imran Khan’s arrest, staged violent protests throughout the country, following which thousands were arrested.
On July 31 this year, an ATC in Faisalabad sentenced PTI leaders, including Gul, to 10 years of imprisonment for their involvement in the riots. The Election Commission of Pakistan later disqualified her and other PTI lawmakers following their convictions. Chaudhry was convicted in another May 9 case by an ATC in Lahore on July 22 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Gul filed an appeal against her conviction and sentencing in the LHC today. A division bench of the LHC will hear the case on Monday.
The appeal was filed through Gul’s lawyers, Barrister Ali Zafar and Muhammad Hussain, and pleaded the court to set aside her conviction and acquit her in the case.
It said that Gul was not nominated in the case or “found physically participant in the occurrence”. It added that no justification was provided by the prosecution for her being included through the supplementary statement, which it claimed cast doubt on the authenticity of the occurrence which had not been considered at the trial stage.
It stated that the ATC passed the “impugned judgment … in a hasty and slipshod manner”, based on three witnesses who had admitted in cross-examination that they had not nominated her but she was nevertheless convicted on their statements with a hefty punishment.
“The prosecution has failed to make out a case for such a punishment,” the petition argued, adding that the witnesses themselves had many times misstated and “cheated” the trial court with additions and deletions in their statements making their testimonies unreliable, but ultimately all exonerated the appellant.
“The other ATC court at Sargodha has disbelieved the same prosecution witnesses … but this is ignored in making (the) impugned decision,” it said.
It also stated that no evidence for conspiracy had been brought forward on the case file, challenging her punishment under section 120-B of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The petition pleaded that as “the prosecution also failed to establish the involvement of the appellant in the occurrence and instigation/abetment beyond the shadow of doubt, then there were no reasons to award punishment to the innocent appellant.”
It stated that the judgment was against “facts and law and resulted in (a) misreading of justice” and that, being passed hastily, material parts of evidence were not considered “despite the facts that the prosecution failed to adduce unimpeachable evidence and there was (every) chance of false implication”.
In particular, it cited the lack of material evidence to establish the intention to abet, instigate and conspire to facilitate the other accused parties. According to the petition, the investigation was “biased” and “flawed” but this was ignored by the court. It further criticised that more weight was given to witness statements than evidence by the court, failing to “properly appreciate” the prosecution’s evidence.
It added that 77 co-accused had been acquitted based on the same evidence, while Gul was convicted without valid reasoning.
The petition called for the judgment to be set aside as the case had not been proven “beyond the shadow of a doubt” due to a lack of unimpeachable evidence, adding that the evidence contained contradictions. It called the judgment of the court “arbitrary, capricious, indiscrete, non-speaking and without lawful authority based on no evidence”.
The petition noted that Gul was seeking leave from the court to advance further grounds at the time of argument.
Meanwhile, Chaudhry filed two petitions in the LHC through Advocate Mian Ali Ashfaq.
Chaudhry pleaded the court to suspend his sentence and conviction, along with ordering his release on bail.
He further requested the court in the second petition to set aside his conviction and acquit him in the case in the “interest of justice”.
Separately, the Lahore ATC reserved its verdicts in two arson cases related to the May 9 riots, in which PTI senior leaders Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Dr Yasmin Rashid, Chaudhry and Omar Cheema are accused, with the judge slated to announce the decisions on August 11.
According to Advocates Rana Mudassar and Rana Maroof, who represented the PTI leaders during the hearing, the trials in the cases of burning vehicles outside Rahat Bakery and arson near Shadman Nazar were completed and ATC Judge Manzar Ali Gul reserved his verdict.
They said the verdicts would be issued on Monday.
They said a total of 25 accused were named in the Rahat Bakery case, while seven accused were declared absconders. They added that the trial of 12 accused was completed in the Shadman Nazar police station arson case and five accused were in custody in this case, while one accused had died.
The lawyers said Qureshi, Dr Rashid, Chaudhry, Cheema, Mian Mahmoodur Rashid and other accused were present in the courtroom.
The virtual world can bring a kind of friendship and a kind of connection, even to the grieving. But it can also facilitate exploitation of very human needs Joaquin Oliver was 17 years old when he was shot in the hallway of his high school. An older teenager, expelled some months previously, had opened fire…
