Meet the winners of the Financial Review Women in Leadership Awards
The Australian Financial Review Women in Leadership Awards, an evolution of the much-loved Women of Influence program, highlights the work and achievements of those women poised to enter the upper echelons of Australia's corporate decision makers.
The awards recognise outstanding contributions in sectors including financial services; health; government, education and not-for-profit; retail, hospitality and property; professional services; resources, industrials and utilities; and tech and telco.
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CBS News
11 minutes ago
- CBS News
Sacramento's Cosumnes River Preserve could be impacted by U.S. sale of federal land for housing
U.S. considers selling more than 16 million acres of federal land in California for housing U.S. considers selling more than 16 million acres of federal land in California for housing U.S. considers selling more than 16 million acres of federal land in California for housing SACRAMENTO — The U.S. Senate is considering selling over 16 million acres of federal land in California to turn into housing, including in Sacramento. The plan is part of President Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill," or budget reconciliation bill, which proposed putting over 250 million acres of public land in western states for sale, including land governed by the Bureau of Land Management U.S. Forest Service. The spot in Sacramento that could be impacted is the Consumnes River Preserve. "We were out there for about three hours this morning and it's a prize. It's really something worth saving," said Josh Schermerhorn, who was enjoying the Consumnes River Preserve with his wife Kathy on Tuesday. Senators who support this bill said selling federal land will generate upward of $10 billion for the government. "The thought of the sale of public lands is pretty un-American," said Katie Hawkins, California program director of the Outdoor Alliance. Hawkins said they are suspicious of the proposal because there are no safeguards in the plan that would prevent pretty much anyone from buying it. "Whether it's extraction, timber sales or if it's development for wealthy developers or even foreign interest," said Hawkins. Her other concern is whether the land is really meant to be built on. Historically, the area has seen flooding with waters spreading across nearby wetlands and rice fields. "I think flooding is natural," said kayaker Kather Schermerhorn. "This is an area that's not hurting anybody and to let it be natural." Mike Lee, a Republican Senator from Utah, has been pushing for the federal land to be sold, but not everyone in his party is on board. "It is so important that the acquisition or disposition of any of these lands be made only after significant and meaningful local input," said Republican California Rep. Kevin Kiley. Kiley openly opposed the idea on the House floor several weeks ago. The House voted against it, but the proposal is still alive on the Senate side. "We have other places where housing could be built and it doesn't have to be on a pristine, precious preserve," said Kathy. A staff member from one of the 10 organizations within the Consumnes River Preserve Partnership told CBS13 that the land is not meant to be built on and thinks solving the housing crisis should not cost Americans losing natural gems. Other California land that could be impacted includes parts of Lake Tahoe, Yosemite and Joshua Tree. Democratic U.S. Senator Alex Padilla sent CBS13 this statement about the proposal: "Make no mistake, this latest Republican proposal is riddled with anti-environment provisions meant to create the largest public land sell off in recent memory to subsidize their tax cuts for billionaires. If Republicans have their way, we will never get our public lands back once they are privatized. Our public lands and natural spaces are some of our nation's greatest gifts and I will do everything I can do to protect them." The Senate has until July 4 to decide on this bill.
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Are Lindsey Graham's contortions about to prod Trump into Russia sanctions?
Has Lindsey Graham been playing the long game with Donald Trump? Graham, who has calibrated his pro-Ukraine support since the inauguration to stay in the US president's orbit, has said he expects this week that the Senate will begin moving his Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, a bill that he says would impose 'bone-breaking sanctions' on Vladimir Putin and a 500% tariff on goods imported from countries that buy Russian oil and other goods, potentially targeting China and India. The fate of the bill still depends on whether Trump gives the go-ahead, according to congressional insiders. But Trump's growing frustration with Putin has emboldened some in the GOP to begin speaking out on the conflict again – with the notoriously flexible Graham leading the charge for tougher sanctions on the Kremlin. Is it nearing a critical mass moment in Congress – a body that has largely abdicated its role in foreign policy since Trump's inauguration? 'I hope so, because it is the right action to take,' said Don Bacon, a Republican House representative who has criticised the White House on its Ukraine policy. 'But it is risky to speak for others. I know where I stand. The Senate has an overwhelming majority in support of sanctions and we should move out. It is in our national security interests that Russia fails here and it should be obvious that Putin doesn't want peace, but wants dominance over Ukraine.' Trump's shift on Russia has come as his efforts to negotiate a speedy ceasefire have failed. Talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul on Monday led to little progress, and continued outreach from his personal envoy, Steve Witkoff, to the Kremlin has not brought concessions from Vladimir Putin. A leaked draft of Russia's demands at the negotiations depicted a capitulation: withdrawal from Ukrainian territory claimed by Russia, no Nato membership for Ukraine, caps on the size of the country's military. Yet it has specifically been the bombardment of cities that has upset Trump, proving once again that Putin has managed to be his own worst enemy when it comes to negotiations. 'I've always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him,' Trump said last week, repeating part of the comments in public. 'He has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I'm not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever.' As the White House looks for means to increase pressure on Russia and its enablers like China, the bill backed by Graham and the Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal has become a convenient tool to do just that. One person in GOP circles said that the White House was considering letting Republicans 'vote their conscience' – in effect allowing Congress to support the bill without facing blowback from the Trump administration. But that would involve a final decision by the White House, and Trump has still not openly backed new sanctions as more than just a contingency. 'Despite support of 82 or so senators, the bill can't move without support in the House, and the speaker of the House won't move it without the president's support,' said Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institute. 'And it's not clear the president has really decided Putin's the impediment to a ceasefire. Additionally, the Senate will be consumed with passing the reconciliation bill for the next few weeks.' But as of Tuesday, the leadership appeared ready to move forward. The weather vane for Trump's gusty foreign policy on Ukraine has been Graham, a veteran political survivor who has built a strong relationship with the president through relentless flattery and has tailored his views to match Trump's when convenient. On Ukraine, he has been so bendable that he could not be broken. 'They play a very careful game because they don't want to upset their relationship with the big guy,' said one person knowledgable about discussions among congressional Republicans. 'At the same time, I do think his heart and his head is in the right place. Just really not quite his own courage.' Graham's interventions have been meaningful. He was instrumental in pushing the minerals deal that Ukraine signed with the US as a way to get Trump's buy-in for its defense. Over a game of golf, he pitched Trump on the 'trillions' in mineral wealth in Ukraine and later showed him a map (Trump said he wanted 'half' according to one account). At the same time, he publicly fumed about Volodymyr Zelenskyy following the disastrous White House meeting of late February when Trump and JD Vance argued with the wartime leader. 'I don't know if we can ever do business with Zelenskyy again,' Graham said, also suggesting that the Ukrainian leader should resign. (Zelenskyy shot back later that he was ready to offer him citizenship if he wanted to discuss who should lead Ukraine). Graham's latitude has stunned some of his former colleagues. A former colleague who had worked with Graham on Ukraine policy said that his remarks about Zelenskyy had given him 'whiplash'. Asked if Graham had a coherent strategy to influence Trump, the person said: 'Graham's strategy is to put Graham first.' 'I think that he understands the big game,' said another person familiar with discussions over the bill. 'He would like the policy to be sound, which means [putting sanctions] on the Kremlin. But he values his relationship with the president and that that trumps the first calculation. So if he really feels the president's against, he's not going to go for it.' Now, with Trump signaling greater readiness for sanctions, Graham has traveled to Kyiv to meet with Zelenskyy (all smiles) and to Brussels, where he and the EU president, Ursula von der Leyen, discussed potential EU and US sanctions packages to turn up the pressure on Moscow. 'Senator Graham deserves a lot of credit for making the case for tougher pressure on the Kremlin,' said John Hardie, the Russia program deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative thinktank. 'Carrots clearly haven't worked, so it's time to start using some sticks, including by going after Russia's oil revenue. This economic pressure should be paired with sustained military assistance for Ukraine.' Hardie and others noted that Trump could increase pressure on Russia without the Senate bill. 'If President Trump were to decide to go the pressure route, he already has the tools at his disposal to do so,' said Hardie. 'For example, he could immediately designate the rest of Russia's shadow fleet and other non-western entities facilitating Russian oil exports and could join with G7 partners in lowering the G7 oil price cap.' And even if the sanctions are passed, they will ultimately rely on Trump's decision to enforce them. 'The Senate is prepared either way,' Graham wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week. 'I have coordinated with the White House on the Russia sanctions bill since its inception. The bill would put Russia on a trade island, slapping 500% tariffs on any country that buys Moscow's energy products. The consequences of its barbaric invasion must be made real to those that prop it up. If China or India stopped buying cheap oil, Mr Putin's war machine would grind to a halt.'
Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
At Home Depot, Ice raids terrorize the workers who helped build LA: ‘They just come and grab you'
The white vans zipped into the parking lot of the Home Depot in central Los Angeles. Pedro watched from the corner as masked federal immigration agents emerged before grabbing and handcuffing people. There were a hundred or so day laborers milling about the home improvement megastore's sprawling parking lot – soliciting construction work from homeowners and contractors – plus Home Depot shoppers and a number of food vendors. Everyone was suddenly frantic. It took a few seconds for Pedro to grasp what he was seeing. Unlike most of the other workers and vendors there, the 27-year-old from Mexico had a legal residency status, so he jumped up to help, trying to usher away workers. Schools were out for the summer, so a couple of the vendors had brought their children with them that day. 'Imagine – young children,' he said. 'They all started to run.' That raid – and subsequent ones at a nearby garment manufacturer in downtown LA – sparked massive protests in LA, which the Trump administration tried to quell by mobilizing thousands of national guard troops. It also disrupted and destabilized the little economy at the Home Depot parking lot, along Wilshire Boulevard and Burlington Avenue, in ways that Pedro said he's still trying to understand. In the days after, vendors selling lunch and fruits stopped coming. Hardly any workers came. 'Look – nothing, just silence,' Pedro said as he gestured around. 'I have never seen anything like this before. Not here. Never here in LA.' The immigration enforcement raids in California have been targeting undocumented immigrant workers all across southern California – at donut shops, car washes, factories and farms. But among the most common sites have been Home Depots. The chain has long maintained an unofficial, symbiotic relationship with the undocumented laborers who gather in store parking lots, hoping to get hired for a day of painting, landscaping or roofing. Federal agents trialled the tactic in January, when they rounded up immigrants at a Home Depot in California's agricultural Kern county. Over the past week, agents have visited Home Depot parking lots in the LA suburbs of Huntington Park, Santa Ana and Whittier. 'These workers, this community, has been here for decades,' said Jorge Nicolás, a senior organizer at a day labor center called Central American Resource Center (Carecen). The group maintains a resource center for workers abutting the Home Depot lot in LA's Westlake neighborhood, near downtown. On Fridays, the organization distributes food there – but since the raid, they have stopped, to avoid putting workers and families at risk. 'There's a lot of emotions, a lot of sadness,' he said. There is also indignation. The raids have entrapped the very immigrant workers who have built, roofed, painted and wired much of the city, he said. Many of these workers have been helping clean and rebuild communities in LA that burned in fires that raged across the region this winter. Nicolás was nearby when the agents arrived on Friday. For laborers who escaped military juntas and gang violence in their home countries, the masked, armed agents triggered painful flashbacks to cartel kidnappings. 'It looked like a war zone,' he said. Lawyers said they had been blocked from speaking to immigrants who were held in the basement of federal administrative buildings in downtown LA for days, without adequate food or water. Some were transferred to detention centers in California's high desert, or in Texas. At least a handful of people were deported to Mexico almost immediately, according to lawyers. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) flatly denied that attorneys had been barred from seeing detained clients. 'These allegations are FALSE,' spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, despite documented evidence that attorneys and even congressional representatives were barred from speaking to detainees this week. In the days following the raids, Nicolás and other advocates struggled to track the day laborers who had been arrested. 'It really does look like a kidnapping,' he said. Agents have picked off people with brown skin seemingly at random, said Nicolás. 'Even workers with legal status are worried.' On Monday, Eduardo saw another raid unfold at a Home Depot in Huntington Park, a city where nearly 97% of residents are Latino or Hispanic. 'They just come and grab you, like grabbing a baby,' said the 45-year-old day laborer. 'They don't ask any questions.' He watched the whole thing from inside his flatbed truck. It was so fast – all of a sudden, a rush of vans, and a flood of armed agents. He got lucky – they didn't look his way. 'It is difficult to describe. It is a terrible fear,' he said. 'It feels like a sandbag falling on your body. Your vision starts to darken – because the American dream is escaping you at that moment. And all you can do is dream of your land, imagine what it would be to go back after so many years.' Eduardo came to the US from Honduras 18 years ago. His older daughter is almost 24, and his younger is nine, and they were worried about him returning to the Home Depot on Thursday. He was worried, too. 'But they already came, and they left me alone,' he said, shrugging. 'And I need the work.' Only two other laborers and a couple of food vendors decided to take the risk that day. There seemed to be fewer Home Depot shoppers as well. Across the lot, Carlos, 48, was scanning the half-empty scene. On a typical day, he would make $200, maybe even $300, selling fruit out of the back of his minivan. But since the raids began, he's scarcely seen a customer. He expects he'll make maybe $50 this week, if he's lucky. He was at home when the raid happened, and friends messaged him to warn him not to come. He returned to the Home Depot the next day, despite the objections from his nine-year-old son, who was terrified he wouldn't come back. But he's a single dad, and he has to make rent. 'I told him God watches over us,' he said. Across the city, day laborers and street vendors were similarly weighing the dangers of showing up to work against the risks of staying home and losing income. On Thursday in Paramount – a predominantly Latino suburb of LA, where the presence of federal agents last Saturday triggered a roaring protest – there were no workers outside the local Home Depot. But larger numbers of customers and workers had begun to return to Home Depot in the Westlake neighborhood – which was among several locations hit by federal agents in central LA on Friday – after volunteers showed up this week to patrol the street corners for Ice agents. 'Now we're ready for them,' said Diego, a 75-year-old day laborer and sometime flower vendor from Guatemala. Still, everybody was on edge. There was far less work than usual, far fewer customers slowing their cars. 'When someone does stop, there's like a mountain of workers rushing over,' he said. 'And usually they just want to hire one or two people.' Even if the lot looks the same as always, said Daniel, 45, it's not. 'Everything is different since the raid. Nothing is the same,' he said. He plans to look for work here for as long as he can. 'We are here because of the luck of the draw,' he said. 'We do not know what is going to happen from here on.' Note: The Guardian is not using the full names of any workers in this piece, to protect their privacy and safety
