Latest news with #AndrewEvans
News.com.au
5 days ago
- 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.'
The Independent
07-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
We will have justice – infected blood victims speak out as inquiry reopens
People given infected blood and blood products in one of the worst treatment disasters in NHS history have said they will 'have justice' as hearings reopened into the scandal. Sir Brian Langstaff, chairman of the Infected Blood Inquiry, is holding two days of special hearings to examine the 'timeliness and adequacy of the Government's response to compensation'. Campaigners have voiced concerns surrounding the compensation scheme, which was announced last year, with some victims saying they fear they will not live to receive their payout. Groups representing people infected and affected by the scandal and people infected themselves are giving evidence on Wednesday morning. 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, said: 'We have around 2,100 members, all of whom are in a desperate state at the moment since the announcement of the Government's compensation package and things that have unfolded since.' Nigel Hamilton, chairman of Haemophilia Northern Ireland, said: 'I started off as a haemophiliac from birth. I had a liver transplant as a result of hepatitis C in 2018. 'I lost a twin brother Christmas day just over a year ago and I have several cousins I have also lost within the family. 'I believe in justice. I believe we have to be here today, thanks to the public inquiry and Sir Brian to ensure that we get the opportunity to repeat that we need justice. 'We are entitled to justice and we will have justice.' Alan Burgess, a campaigner who was co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C while receiving treatment for haemophilia, said: 'I can't believe we are back here today.' When asked about the quality of engagement from the Cabinet Office and the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA), Mr Burgess said: 'I'd like to say that they engaged with us, but they didn't. 'They talked down to us. They were condescending. They had a scripted answer for everything we had. 'To be honest with you, it's almost a waste of time being there. You know, they weren't going to take any notice of what we said.' Mr Burgess said he told IBCA and the Cabinet Office that the mental states of the infected and affected were 'shocking' and it was 'disgraceful, immoral, scandalous, contemptible' for them to in discussions about compensation after 12 months. He also told the hearing victims were dying while the process was ongoing, with one of his friends dying just weeks ago. 'There's people dying without seeing this compensation paid. I didn't expect any sympathy, but we didn't even get any empathy,' Mr Burgess said. More than 30,000 people in the UK were infected with HIV and hepatitis C after they were given contaminated blood and blood products between the 1970s and early 1990s. Some 3,000 people died as a result and survivors are living with lifelong health implications. Campaigner Carolyn Challis, known as Caz, was infected with hepatitis C when she received blood transfusions during chemotherapy treatment for lymphatic cancer between 1992 and 1993. The mother-of-three from North Devon said: 'We feel gaslit, marginalised and abused by successive governments that purport to care, but evidently do not. 'We're suffering from sustained trauma. We should not still be fighting.' Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds has been called to give evidence on Wednesday afternoon while Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) officials will be quizzed by inquiry lawyers on Thursday. In her October budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves allocated £11.8 billion to compensate victims, administered by the IBCA. As of April 24, some 475 people have been invited to make a claim and 77 payments have been made totalling more than £78 million, according to IBCA figures. Opening the hearing, Sir Brian said: 'The decision to hold these further hearings was not taken lightly. 'It is no secret that the Inquiry has received letter after letter, email after email, call after call expressing worries and concerns about how compensation is being delivered. 'The slowness and uncertainty about when someone might expect to receive compensation are central kernels. They are not however the only ones. These matters need to be explored in public.' He added: 'The Inquiry will do everything in its power to identify action that can be taken by the Government and by the infected blood in compensation authority to improve the delivery of compensation and to ensure that justice is done. Sir Brian said that the number of those infected and affected who were in attendance at the hearings 'demonstrate that the complaints, worries, distress and frustrations that have been expressed to us are not just those of an outspoken few'.
The Independent
07-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Inquiry hears of ‘anguish' over compensation for infected blood victims
People given infected blood and blood products in one of the worst treatment disasters in NHS history have described 'anguish' felt while waiting for compensation. The Infected Blood Inquiry has heard that many victims fear they will not live to receive compensation, with people affected by the scandal saying they feel 'betrayed and disappointed'. But campaigners insisted that they will 'have justice' as hearings reopened into the scandal. Sir Brian Langstaff, chairman of the Infected Blood Inquiry, is holding two days of special hearings to examine the 'timeliness and adequacy of the Government's response to compensation'. Opening the hearing, Sir Brian said: 'The decision to hold these further hearings was not taken lightly. 'It is no secret that the Inquiry has received letter after letter, email after email, call after call, expressing worries and concerns about how compensation is being delivered. 'The slowness and uncertainty about when someone might expect to receive compensation are central kernels. They are not, however, the only ones. These matters need to be explored in public.' He added: 'The Inquiry will do everything in its power to identify action that can be taken by the Government and by the infected blood in compensation authority to improve the delivery of compensation and to ensure that justice is done.' Groups representing people infected and affected by the scandal and people infected themselves gave evidence on Wednesday morning. Andrew Evans, from the campaign group Tainted Blood, told the hearing: 'We have around 2,100 members, all of whom are in a desperate state at the moment since the announcement of the Government's compensation package and things that have unfolded since.' Mr Evans, who was infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products during treatment for haemophilia as a child, shared a quote from one of the members of the Tainted Blood group. 'I'm utterly exhausted,' he read. 'The anguish is beyond words. I just want this over.' He said that victims have been left feeling 'betrayed and disappointed' adding: 'People have given up on any expectation of receiving anything. 'They have lost all hope of ever getting justice.' Mr Evans added: 'It's a long-held feeling that governments wish to drag the scandal out in order that the longer it goes on, the more people die and the less compensation will need to be paid.' Gary Webster, who was infected with HIV and hepatitis C when he attend Lord Mayor's Treloar School in Hampshire (Treloar's) in the 1970s and 80s, said his experience with the compensation scheme had been a 'nightmare'. The 60-year-old said: 'I've asked around the Trealor's boys that are amongst us now and their families about how they think the process is going, and the words they come back with were: 'Despicable, distraught, hoodwinked, betrayed, hurt, forgotten'. 'People will not get their compensation and a lot of claims will die with them. 'It's just too slow, and people won't get the justice they deserve.' Campaigner Carolyn Challis was infected with hepatitis C when she received blood transfusions during chemotherapy treatment for lymphatic cancer between 1992 and 1993. The mother-of-three from North Devon said: 'We feel gaslit, marginalised and abused by successive governments that purport to care, but evidently do not. 'We're suffering from sustained trauma. We should not still be fighting.' Nigel Hamilton, chairman of Haemophilia Northern Ireland, added: 'We are entitled to justice and we will have justice.' Alan Burgess, a campaigner who was co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C while receiving treatment for haemophilia, said: 'I can't believe we are back here today.' When asked about the quality of engagement from the Cabinet Office and the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA), Mr Burgess said: 'I'd like to say that they engaged with us, but they didn't. 'They talked down to us. They were condescending. They had a scripted answer for everything we had. 'To be honest with you, it's almost a waste of time being there – they weren't going to take any notice of what we said.' He also told the hearing victims were dying while the process was ongoing, with one of his friends dying just weeks ago. Mary Grindley, who has been campaigning for 45 years, told the inquiry engagement from the Government has been a 'tick-box exercise', adding: 'In reality, the decisions have been made behind closed doors.' The grandmother gave up teaching in 1991 to look after her husband, John, who contracted HIV and hepatitis C while receiving treatment for haemophilia who died from Aids in 1994 at the age of 41. Mrs Grindley, now 76, said: 'There are widows who have died who will now get no compensation… I think this is disgraceful.' More than 30,000 people in the UK were infected with HIV and hepatitis C after they were given contaminated blood and blood products between the 1970s and early 1990s. Some 3,000 people died as a result and survivors are living with lifelong health implications. In her October budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves allocated £11.8 billion to compensate victims, administered by the IBCA. As of April 24, some 475 people have been invited to make a claim and 77 payments have been made totalling more than £78 million, according to IBCA figures. Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds has been called to give evidence on Wednesday afternoon while Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) officials will be quizzed by inquiry lawyers on Thursday.
