Latest news with #APF
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Atlanta Police Foundation ordered to comply with open records requests over ‘Cop City' documents
Illustration by Eric Wilson for Votebeat A Fulton County Superior Court Judge has ordered the Atlanta Police Foundation to comply with a series of open records requests filed by a group of reporters and researchers related to the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, colloquially known as 'Cop City.' The foundation has 30 days to release 15 unredacted public records it had sought to withhold in a case closely watched by journalists and government transparency advocates alike. The foundation is a private nonprofit organization that raises funds for the Atlanta Police Department, helps with police recruitment and serves as the driving force behind the controversial 85-acre training facility that opened earlier this year after mass protests and crackdowns from the state. The plaintiffs, Atlanta Community Press Collective and Chicago-based research center Lucy Parsons Labs, had first requested records regarding the training center back in 2023. The requested records included APF board meeting agendas and minutes, budget documents, emails between foundation officials and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, and various contracts. However, they received no response from the APF, even as the foundation provided records to news outlets like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSB. In a 12-page order released Friday, Judge Jane Barwick ruled that the APF's decision to withhold the records violated Georgia's open records laws, stating that 'records 'maintained or received by a … private person or entity in the performance of a service or function for or on behalf of an agency' are subject to the Open Records Act.' As a result, 'APF was under a duty to provide records to ACPC and Lucy Parsons Labs pursuant to the Open Records Act,' the ruling reads. 'Under the authority explained in this Order, no exemptions applied.' Barwick also emphasized that public records could not be withheld on the basis of which person or group requested them. 'Let the record also be clear that the identity of the requestor does not determine whether records are characterized as public,' she wrote. However, she declined to award attorneys' fees to the plaintiffs, reasoning that the police foundation did not 'knowingly and willfully' violate the Open Records Act. During a two-day bench trial in April, APF President and CEO Dave Wilkinson testified that he viewed responding to the records requests as voluntary, since he did not believe that the private nonprofit was subject to Georgia's open records laws. He also argued that releasing unredacted records could endanger the individuals named in those records by exposing them to harassment and threats from protestors. The press collective applauded the ruling, but condemned the multi-year battle it took to gain access to the records. 'While we're pleased with the result of the lawsuit, we're frustrated that it required a lawsuit to confirm what we already knew to be true: the Atlanta Police Foundation should be responsive to records requests regarding its operations for and on behalf of the City of Atlanta,' the community press collective said in a statement on the ruling. Joy Ramsingh, an attorney who represented the plaintiffs in the suit, also criticized the police foundation's initial refusal to provide the records. 'The fact that APF continued to fight even though the law was so clearly established against them, I think shows bad faith,' Ramsingh said. 'I think it shows a very political mindset on their part as opposed to a willingness to comply with the law.' The police foundation also applauded the ruling, saying it 'welcomes and celebrates Judge Barwick's court ruling as a clear affirmation of our role, our structure, and our ongoing commitment to public safety in Atlanta,' and that they plan to 'fully comply' with the plaintiffs' record requests. The issue of public access to government records has been an ongoing issue across the state in recent months. Last August, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that private contractors working for public entities are still subject to open records laws, and can be sent requests for public records they may possess. The ruling reversed an appeals court decision that government transparency advocates argued would shield certain public records from disclosure. The case also prompted new legislation aimed at clarifying Georgia's existing public records law. Under Senate Bill 12, which was signed into law by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp earlier this year, requests for public records that involve a private entity must now go through the local governmental agencies that contracted with those third parties. Though a last-minute amendment sought to restrict public access from records of police officers' stops, arrests and incident responses, legislators in the House ultimately reversed the changes before advancing SB 12 to the governor's desk. ACPC Final Order SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Britain's money-printing experiment turns into a £150bn taxpayer ‘disaster'
The dangers of printing money are well-documented. Too much money chasing too few goods leads to higher prices and lower growth. Hundreds of billions of pounds of so-called quantitative easing (QE) during the financial crisis skewed this perception as the Bank of England repeatedly fired up the printing presses to try to revive the UK's ailing economy. Inflation at first failed to rear its ugly head, until it did. And policymakers and taxpayers are now counting the cost of Britain's £895bn monetary experiment. QE is a process where Threadneedle Street creates money that is used to buy government bonds, known as gilts, to help drive down the cost of borrowing. Commercial lenders then park that cash at the central bank where they earn interest at the current base rate. When interest rates were at record lows of 0.1pc during the pandemic, the Bank earned far more on the returns from government bonds than it had to dish out in interest. By the end of 2021, the Old Lady was in profit to the tune of £123.9bn. But that was quickly eroded when interest rates started rising, with a 'consistently higher Bank Rate' resulting in 'large interest losses' of £18.5bn in the last financial year alone, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). But that's not all. The Bank is also actively selling its stockpile of gilts back to the market in a move called quantitative tightening (QT), crystallising billions of pounds of losses for the taxpayer. Many economists, politicians and central bankers believe this is a mistake, as it means that some of the bonds Threadneedle Street bought during the crisis are being sold at knockdown prices. In some of the most extreme cases, bonds bought for the equivalent of £1 have been sold for 28p. These so-called 'valuation losses' will dwarf the money being paid out in interest if the Bank continues to actively reduce its stockpile of gilts by around £48bn a year. The total cost to the taxpayer over the scheme's lifetime is currently estimated at around £150bn by both the Bank of England and OBR. That's the equivalent of a £5,000 tax on each household. QE was never intended to be permanent, but few predicted it would turn out to be so expensive. When then Labour chancellor Alistair Darling first authorised the so-called asset purchase facility (APF) to hoover up £50bn of bonds in January 2009, he assured the public that the assets would be 'held for no longer than is necessary to ensure stability and protect taxpayer interests'. However, more than 15 years after the first tranche of money-printing was put into action, the amount of gilts held in the Bank's asset purchase facility remains at £620bn. Lord King, governor of the Bank at the time, says policymakers have reached for the QE tool too last week, he said: 'I think what that led to was a view that 2016 ... [became], I've got some bad news here, we've voted to leave the EU. If we get bad news, we've got to do something; let's do QE. Pandemic: bad news again, what do we do? Let's do QE. 'But there are some kinds of bad news that do require a monetary policy response and other kinds of bad news that do not justify a monetary response. 'You've got to be able to tell the difference between the two. I think the QE in 2020 went way beyond stabilising markets without any plausible justification for it.' Research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) last year blamed active QT, where the Bank sells bonds back to the market before they mature, for raising Britain's long-term borrowing costs by around 0.7 percentage points. Sir John Redwood, a former director of policy for Margaret Thatcher, says the damaging costs of QT are unlikely to prevent similarly bad choices from being made in the future. 'I don't think the authorities learnt anything from this disastrous experiment that is having such a big impact on the public finances,' he says. 'It is self-inflicted harm on a huge scale.' 'The Bank of England has provided no cogent justification for selling bonds for big losses in the market. It says it doesn't have a monetary impact. Well, that is wrong [and] no chancellor has challenged it.' There is a general sense that politicians are starting to wake up to the issue. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, wrote to Andrew Bailey last week in a letter that impressed on the Governor three times that the process of reducing the Bank's stockpile of bonds must provide 'value for money'. The Bank's decision to delay an auction of long-term debt after Donald Trump sparked bond market jitters with his tariff tirade shows that it's listening, while the Treasury's Debt Management Office is also moving away from long-term debt. There is another big shift happening in the background that will, with any luck, help the Bank leave behind its radical money-printing era. Instead of buying bonds, the central bank wants to move to a more normalised system of providing cash on demand through what's known as repurchase or 'repo' operations. Paul Tucker, a former Bank deputy governor, says it's time to move away from a reliance on QE to fix crises. 'I think in this country, the Bank has lost the sense of a distinction between a market maker of last resort intervention, where you purchase government bonds, and a QE intervention, where you're purchasing government bonds to stimulate aggregate demand,' he says. 'The bank has, since the liability-driven investment (LDI) episode, gotten closer to what I think should be orthodoxy.' Orthodoxy means actually sticking to the late Darling's principle of temporary and targeted intervention. It turns out that targeted intervention can be quite profitable for the taxpayer. The Bank made £3.5bn by buying almost £19.3bn of long-term government debt following the LDI crisis that threatened pension funds in 2022. Meanwhile, it comes as politicians across the spectrum are paying greater levels of attention to the process of quantitative tightening. Reform has vowed to stop paying interest on reserves held at the central bank in a move it claims could save £35bn a year. However, Bailey warned in a recent speech that this could undermine the Bank's task of keeping inflation low 'and could cause significant harm to the credibility of monetary policy'. In other words, the Bank could lose control. Bailey has also highlighted that moving back to a world where the Bank responds to demand rather than actively buying gilts could make taxpayers more cash. Threadneedle Street takes a small cut every time commercial banks tap the Bank for cash and that money can quickly add up. Sanjay Raja, at Deutsche Bank, says there is a case for winding down the Bank's stockpile of gilts entirely. 'This would, ultimately, reduce the Treasury's transfer payments to the Bank, and reduce the fiscal burden of its QE operations,' he says. Raja also believes the bar for future QE is already higher. 'The effects of QE have been mixed,' he says. 'Concerns on taxpayer value for money have also now come to the fore. 'And given the political attention that QE and QT have attracted, central bankers may be more wary of turning to QE in the first instance – unless, of course, the occasion calls for it.' But don't wave goodbye to QE just yet. One former insider says that while the Old Lady may be scarred by money-printing, that doesn't mean she won't fire up the printing presses again. 'I can tell you that the government of the day were desperate for us to do whatever we could,' they recall. 'They wanted to go much further, much faster, buy all sorts of stuff, and whatever it took to rescue the economy.' So if desperate times fall again, QE may be the Bank's only option – regardless of how much pain it will cause the taxpayer for decades to come. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
BBC News
19-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
French-speaking parliamentarians meeting in Jersey
Twenty-nine delegates from 13 French-speaking areas are attending a conference in Jersey. The Conférence des Présidents of the European Region will focus on strengthening the role of young adults in economic and sustainable conference began on Sunday and will end on Tuesday, with a cultural visit scheduled to take place on Tuesday Montfort Tadier, president of the Jersey branch of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie (APF), said: "We are delighted to welcome our Francophonie friends to Jersey to further foster those connections." The APF is an international organisation that brings together parliamentarians from countries where French is either spoken or plays a significant role. Jersey has been a member of the APF since 1971.
Time of India
15-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
2.5 lakh girls in 18 states to get Premji scholarship in higher education
Bengaluru: Azim Premji Foundation (APF) will expand Azim Premji Scholarship to 2.5 lakh girl students across 18 states from this year to support them in pursuing higher education. The programme started as a pilot project in 2024-25 was operational in Madhya Pradesh and certain districts of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Jharkhand. The Foundation hopes it will reach 2.5 lakh girls in the academic year 2025-26. That is a commitment of Rs 750 crore in one year and Rs 2,250 crore in three years. Girls who have completed class 10 and 12 schooling in govt schools and have admission in a bona fide higher education institution, including all govt higher education institutions and select private institutions, are eligible for the scholarship. The scholarship will include Rs 30,000 a year for the duration of the degree or diploma programme. "A girl pursuing a four-year BSc (Nursing) will get Rs 1,20,000 scholarship support in those four years. The money will be transferred in two instalments to the girl's bank account directly every year. She may use the money as needed," stated the foundation. In the pilot project, APF received 1.1 lakh applications and 25,000 were found eligible. A commitment of Rs 75 crore this year was made for those girls. The students have been in college only for a few months now. "In most govt institutions, girls have a tuition-fee waiver. But there's also a lot of other expenses. They end up spending money on clothing, books, and transportation for which she will get this Rs 30,000. There's no restriction that she has to spend it for a particular cause," said Anurag Behar, chief executive officer, APF. "There's nothing complicated in the design of this scholarship. The primary school enrolment percentage of girls and boys is almost equal. But as you progress through primary school to middle school to higher secondary and then college, things change. Among those who come from disadvantaged, vulnerable families, very often it is the girl who sacrifices. It's not as though money is the only reason. But financial issues are one reason because of which a very large percentage of girls do not continue into higher education. Therefore, our hope is that with this kind of scholarship support, many more girls will continue into that also. Higher education, after all, changes life prospects," he said. The scholarship programme is likely to be expanded to the entire country in coming years, he added. This is neither a merit-based scholarship nor is it bounded by family income. "The practical reality is that if you start going into all those kinds of details, it's impossible to handle it. Around 90-95% of the children going to govt school come from relatively disadvantaged families. No rich people's kids go to govt schools these days, unfortunately. We don't want to do any further diligence on that," he said. WHICH ARE THE STATES * Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand * Application process for 2025-26 starts in Sept 2025
United News of India
11-05-2025
- United News of India
India-Nepal security personnel intensify monitoring to curb cross-border infiltration
Kathmandu/New Delhi, May 11 (UNI) Security personnel from both Nepal and India have intensified monitoring at 20 border points to curb infiltration along the 83-kilometre open border between Bardiya in the Himalayan nation and India, an offical said.. The majority of this stretch runs adjacent to India's Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary and dense forest areas, which are considered high-risk zones. 'Joint patrols are being carried out in the no-man's-land by Nepal's Armed Police Force (APF), Nepal Police, and India's Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB),' said Rudradevi Sharma, chief district officer of Bardiya, The Kathmandu Post reported. An area of particular focus has been the Ganeshpur–Laukahi corridor, identified as a high-risk zone by officials at the Bardiya District Administration Office. In an effort to tighten security, stricter entry protocols have been enforced, requiring individuals to register personal identification at designated checkpoints. The move comes amid growing concerns that the corridor is being used for criminal purposes such as unauthorised cross-border movement, escaping from legal authorities, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and other forms of illegal trade, which security analysts say could pose broader risks to both local stability and regional security. The area's proximity to porous border zones and limited monitoring infrastructure has long made it a challenge for enforcement agencies, underscoring the need for sustained and coordinated oversight. The enhanced monitoring signals a broader push to assert control over strategic entry points and curb transnational threats in a region long seen as difficult to police. Individuals crossing the border are now required to provide information on their destination, purpose of visit, return date, and the person they intend to meet. Valid identification has been made mandatory. The increased vigilance follows the recent terror attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, which led to heightened tensions between India and Pakistan. Locals have also reported a noticeable decline in the number of Nepali visitors to Indian border towns such as Laukahi and Balaigaun, reflecting the heightened security measures and growing public caution. UNI ANV SSP
