Latest news with #AndrewEvans
South Wales Argus
18-07-2025
- Business
- South Wales Argus
Newport to benefit from £7 million semiconductor investment
KLA Corporation has announced a £7 million investment to expand its semiconductor research and manufacturing operations in Newport, delivering a major boost to Gwent's thriving tech sector. The funding includes £6.25 million from Cardiff Capital Region and £750,000 from Newport City Council, supporting the development of a 237,000 facility at Imperial Park. The site will house manufacturing space, a fabrication plant, and offices for up to 750 employees, placing Newport firmly on the map as a hub for compound semiconductor innovation. The new facility is located within Gwent's established compound semiconductor cluster and is expected to play a key role in advancing the UK's industrial strategy, and will also be vital to any plans for boosting defence capability. The investment aligns with the goals of the local Investment Zone initiative, which aims to drive economic growth and create high-value jobs in the Gwent area. Jo Stevens, Secretary of State for Wales, welcomed the announcement of more public money, highlighting its potential to deliver skilled employment and long-term prosperity for the region. Andrew Evans, Senior Director at KLA, said the expansion reflects Wales's strategic importance to KLA's global operations and its commitment to innovation. The UK government has argued that such public investment will further strengthen the connection investors like KLA have to the Gwent area. This latest move follows a £250 million investment by Vishay Intertechnology into Newport Wafer Fab earlier this year, further cementing the area's reputation as a semiconductor powerhouse. Together, these developments signal a new chapter for Newport, positioning it as a key player in the global supply chain for advanced electronics and chip technologies. KLA Corporation, headquartered in California, is a global leader in semiconductor process control. The company was formed in 1997 and provides technologies that help detect defects, improve production yield, and accelerate innovation in chip design and fabrication. Operating in over 20 countries and employing around 15,000 people, KLA reported revenues of $9.81 billion last year. Its customers include major semiconductor manufacturers worldwide, and its tools are essential for producing the ultra-precise chips used in your smartphone, AI systems, driverless vehicles, and more. The Newport expansion represents a significant step forward in Gwent's and the M4 corridor's rising profile in the semiconductor industry, according to KLA and politicians.
The Independent
09-07-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Infected blood victims facing ‘new layer of psychological pain' amid compensation failings, damning report finds
Government failings over the compensation offered to victims of the infected blood scandal has left them facing a 'new and different layer of psychological pain', a damning report has concluded. A report into the compensation of victims and others affected by the scandal found that they have been ignored, branding the British state's apology meaningless unless they are given greater involvement. Sir Brian Langstaff, chairman of the official inquiry into the infected blood scandal, said: 'Decisions have been made behind closed doors leading to obvious injustices.' Publishing a report into failings in the government's compensation for victims, Sir Brian said: 'The government has known for years that compensation for thousands of people was inevitable and had identified many of those who should have had it. 'But only 460 have received compensation so far and many, many more have not even been allowed to begin the process.' He called for the compensation scheme to be sped up, with greater access offered to those affected by the scandal. In a devastating piece of evidence, which Sir Brian concluded was 'fully justified', the infected blood inquiry was told how victims have faced 'a new and different layer of psychological pain'. Andrew Evans, from the campaign group Tainted Blood and who was infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products during treatment for haemophilia as a child, repeated the testimony of another who said it had been 'another layer I have had to endure, adapt to and fight every day to not let it take over my life'. They said: 'I have spent more than 30 years fighting trauma, exclusion and the constant struggle to keep my life together. 'I have fought every day to keep the darkest thoughts from consuming me. What has happened since the compensation scheme was announced has pushed that fight to its absolute limit and now I am utterly exhausted… the anguish is beyond words.' Mr Evans said victims have felt 'nothing but despair' and have 'lost all hope of ever fetting justice'. Victims described being 'left feeling age and illness catching up with us' while waiting for compensation, adding that 'there is no rest, there is no peace'. Others said it 'feels as if we are waiting to die, in limbo, unable to make any progress in our lives and fearing as our health declines we may not ever get the compensation awards we deserve'. And, speaking to The Independent, Jackie Wrixton said that she hoped the report would force the government to 'pull their finger out' and speed up the compensation, given the high rate of deaths among those infected. The 63-year-old was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2010 after four decades of ill health, after receiving a blood transfusion following childbirth in 1983. 'The euphoria we had a year ago has dissipated and now we're having to demonstrate,' she said. 'The recommendations are really powerful but they just don't seem to have the teeth we need to get the government to act. 'We have all of the platitude but none of the action. They say they're working at pace, it's just pulled and drawn out at every opportunity by every MP, but we are dying at pace. We are still not getting the coverage we need to get the public to understand what's happening.' Of the tens of thousands the inquiry believed were infected, and the many more affected by the scandal, just 460 have so far received compensation - totalling £326m. Some 616 have received an offer of compensation, the latest figures show, while 2,043 have been asked to start compensation claims. The report set out a series of recommendations to speed up compensation and improve fairness, which included: Allowing infected and affected people to apply for compensation, rather than having to wait to be asked. Progressing applications from those move seriously ill, who are older or who have not received compensation faster. End the injustice of people infected with HIV before 1982 being excluded from compensation. Drop unrealistic evidence requirements for those who suffered severe psychological harm. Rishi Sunak last May promised the government 'will pay comprehensive compensation to those infected and affected by this scandal… whatever it costs'. But, having set out little detail of how the compensation scheme would work, the former PM called a general election two days later. The report found that the snap general election meant the establishment of the compensation scheme was rushed to meet an August deadline. The infected blood inquiry had recommended that there should be two panels advising the chair and board of the compensation scheme, one of medical experts and one of lawyers. But the government appointed an expert group which the inquiry deemed did not contain 'the full range of expertise recommended', with no psychological expertise, no clinician specialising in bleeding disorders and no transfusion specialist. The inquiry also criticised the group for being unable to meet with infected and affected people. The inquiry's report on Wednesday highlighted that people set to benefit from the compensation scheme should have had a central role in its decision-making and operation. But the day after it was announced, it was revealed the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) had been established with no direct involvement from those affected. The report highlighted that the government has apologised on behalf of the British state for the infected blood treatment disaster. 'That apology will only be meaningful if the government demonstrates it is willing to listen to people, sooner rather than later, and to act when it has made a mistake,' it found. It added: 'Truly involving people infected and affected in how the state recognises their losses would start to turn the page on the past.'
News.com.au
06-06-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
‘Staggering': NSW Police hunt raft of alleged public transport offenders
Sydney transport workers have been subjected to an onslaught of recent alleged violent attacks, police say, as a string of CCTV images are released in hopes of making arrests. On Friday, NSW Police released images of 15 people they are looking for, who were allegedly involved in incidents dating back to November. The 15 incidents involve Transport for NSW staff and members of the public allegedly being hit, kicked and spat on, exposed to sexual acts, and an adult allegedly directing a child to swipe a workers bag before stealing a phone. 'A staggering number of violent offences my officers respond to are against Transport for NSW staff,' transport police unit Detective Superintendent Andrew Evans said. 'These are hardworking people just trying to keep our trains, buses and light rails running and they don't deserve this treatment.' The list of 15 incidents where police are yet to make an arrest date back to November 13, and span Sydney's train and bus networks. In that November 13 incident at Central Railway Station, a man without a ticket was asked to leave, but allegedly returned to the train and assaulted a worker and pushed them to the ground. In February, a bus driver was allegedly punched in the head for not taking a man directly home. The incident happened on a bus travelling on Alcoomie Street in Villawood, about 5.30pm on February 24. A man wanted the bus driver to skip stops and take him straight home, and then assaulted the driver. On a Monday morning train ride, police say a man 'performed a sexual act' in the presence of a woman. The incident happened between Central and Bondi Junction stations, about 9.20am on April 7. On April 17 at Lidcombe Station, police say a man directed a child to steal a transport worker's bag, before the man took the worker's phone. NSW Police's transport unit is conducting a dedicated operation to arrest these and other alleged public transport offenders. 'The goal of this operation is to arrest, charge and prevent these offenders from abusing further workers,' Superintendent Evans said. 'During this operation we plan to lockdown high traffic areas on our transport network, conduct multiple firearm prohibition order compliance checks and saturate the network with officers to weed out these offenders.'
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Army halves spy plane fleet before first takeoff
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The U.S. Army is planning to buy half the spy planes it had previously planned to procure, according to an executive order outlining initial plans of an Army secretary-directed transformation initiative. In the May 7 document obtained by Defense News, the order requests an implementation plan within 30 days on how the Army will adjust to build six High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System, or HADES, as opposed to buying 12 of such planes. A year ago, then-director of Army aviation Maj. Gen. Wally Rugen showed a slide during the Army Aviation Association of America's annual conference in Denver, Colorado, indicating the service planned to field 14 HADES aircraft by 2035. While the executive order appears to represent a slash to the program, 'We never had a defined number in any document about how many HADES we were going to build,' Andrew Evans, Army Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Task Force director, told reporters in a Thursday briefing at the AAAA conference in Nashville, Tennessee. 'We will build to the condition of the threat. We will build to the conditions of the budget,' he said. 'What the Army is committed to is this mission of deep sensing. How many systems we need in the future will be a decision for the future based on the threat that we think that we're going to face.' While the Army is still in the early planning process for the program, any potential decision on the number of aircraft is 'not going to change a single thing about the capacity or capability that we're delivering,' Evans said. Sierra Nevada Corporation won an Army contract to serve as the lead system integrator for the HADES program in August 2024. The award for HADES integration work covers a 12-year period worth $93.5 million initially and potentially up to $944.3 million. HADES is the service's effort to overhaul existing fixed-wing aircraft that perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR, missions. The service has retired roughly 70 aircraft — its entire ISR fleet — recently divesting its last legacy aircraft. And while HADES is expected to rapidly deploy and provide deep-sensing capabilities, the task force is learning the aircraft could provide even more capability than it initially imagined, including the ability to disable enemy space-based capabilities and carry launched effects. The Army is using a large-cabin business jet, the Bombardier Global 6500, as the airframe for the spy plane. The service awarded Bombardier a contract in December for one aircraft, with an option to buy two more over a three-year period. Buying more or less aircraft will not cause unit cost to grow or reduce because they are produced by hand by craftsmen at Sierra Nevada, Col. Joe Minor, the Army's project manager for fixed-wing aircraft, said. Sierra Nevada already has the first prototype aircraft delivered from Bombardier and is working in the integration piece prior to delivering the platform to the Army in September 2026, followed by a second prototype in mid-2027. The Army has spent more than six years assessing ISR fixed-wing prototypes using high-speed jets to inform the HADES program. It began with the deployment of the Airborne Reconnaissance and Target Exploitation Multi-mission System, or Artemis, which has flown in the European theater near the Ukrainian border. Leidos built Artemis using a Bombardier Challenger 650 jet. The service then deployed its Airborne Reconnaissance and Electronic Warfare System, or ARES, to the Pacific region in April 2022. L3Harris built the aircraft using a Bombardier Global Express 6500 jet. The Army is also building four more prototypes that will inform the requirements for the HADES program. The service chose Sierra Nevada and a MAG Aerospace and L3Harris team to deliver two jets each with spy technologies to advance long-range targeting plans. MAG and L3's prototypes use a Global 6500 with ISR sensors for the Army's radar-focused Athena-R effort, while Sierra Nevada is providing RAPCON-X for the service's signals intelligence-focused Athena-S project. RAPCON-X is also the basis for HADES. When the first HADES prototype is ready, the Army will deploy HADES for a limited period of time and then start building more aircraft as the early prototype remains deployed. Tim Owings, executive vice president for Sierra Nevada's Mission Solutions and Technologies business area, likened it to 'sudden-death playoffs.' 'We have to deliver prototype one. We deliver prototype one, and it delivers the value that we think this platform is going to provide. We think it becomes a no-brainer decision to add more quantities down the line,' Owings said. 'This is like a newlywed couple arguing whether they wanted to have a fourth child when they haven't had a first child, or a second child or a third child yet,' he said. 'Those are decisions that are down the road. They're reserved for our senior leaders, and we're working closely with industry partners to be able to manage that, but to freak out about what's going to happen in the future, it's probably a little bit unnecessary.'
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Army explores ultra-long-range launched effects to spy from the sky
NASHVILLE, Tenn. − The U.S. Army is pursuing concepts to deploy ultra-long-range effects to surveil deep in the battlespace, according to the service's Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Task Force director. 'We may have to have standoff capability that we've not yet envisioned today,' Andrew Evans said Wednesday at the Army Aviation Association of America's annual conference. The Army is already focused on developing launched effects from both ground and air platforms for short, medium and long-range distances. 'What we're going to do in the intel space is demonstrate what we call ultra-long-range launched effects,' Evans said. 'What we're looking at doing is something that represents a thousand miles past the prime mover, so imagine a system that can deliver a launched effect that can get itself into a position of launch and then a thousand miles beyond that, which is over-the-horizon sensing. You're getting into some game-changing capabilities.' The ISR Task Force plans to conduct a user demonstration in 2026 exploring what this concept could look like using a commercial aircraft to then deploy a long-range launched effect. 'We believe industry has solved a lot of these problems already. What we have done is get all the right industry partners together to try to figure out how to build the ecosystem around that,' he said. The Army's approach will likely first focus on the 'glide body itself, the propulsion vehicle,' Evans said, then the service will layer in sensing capabilities. Lastly, it will focus on 'backhauling' or transporting the data off of the platform to the relevant command and control interfaces. 'The sensing and the backhaul are not trivial,' said Lawrence Mixon, special assistant to the Program Executive Officer for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. 'Our integrated sensor architecture folks within the PEO have already been working in that regard with standards from data that should help in partnering with industry to get through that backhaul piece,' he said, adding, 'it also ties back into next-generation command-and-control and standards there to enable that information to get to decision makers, to commanders.' Earlier this year, the Army issued a call to industry looking for unmanned aircraft systems to launch from medium- or high-altitude platforms that would perform tasks like ISR, according to the notice posted to the federal business opportunities portal A demonstration of operational capability is planned for the fiscal 2026 timeframe. This effort will also help inform the work in which the ISR Task Force is engaged. While the task force's demonstration would not use the Army's emerging high-speed spy jet called HADES, which is short for 'High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System,' one concept for an ultra-long-range effect uses the long legs of that platform to deeply penetrate over enemy territory, followed by an even deeper journey using the launched effect. HADES is currently in the prototyping phase. 'We're in a situation where we may not even be able to move out of a port of the United States without some sort of threat to our force projection,' Evans said. 'As intel professionals, we ha[ve] to figure out a way to overcome that because sensing has to lead that capability, to answer those questions you [have] to know where you're about to project those forces and what kind of fight they're about to get into,' Evans said. 'And something like HADES or the other work that we're doing in [Multidomain Sensing Systems] allows us to self-project, which is why ultra-long-range effects, that becomes also important.'
