Latest news with #List
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Athletics place star rookie Jacob Wilson on IL with fractured forearm
The Athletics will be without star rookie Jacob Wilson due to a fractured forearm. The A's placed their shortstop on the 10-day Injured List on Tuesday with a broken arm, which he first sustained earlier this month after he was hit by a pitch. The IL move was made retroactive to Saturday. The injury dates back to July 8, when Wilson was hit by a pitch in the first inning of a matchup with the Atlanta Braves. Wilson left the game after taking the pitch directly to his forearm and wrist. Wilson, though, didn't miss much time after that. Initial X-rays were negative, and he sat just three games with a contusion before returning. Wilson then played in the All-Star Game the following week. He returned after the break, too, and last appeared in the Athletics' 15-3 win over the Houston Astros on Friday. Wilson had one hit and one RBI in that blowout win. Considering it's a fracture, Wilson could be sidelined for a significant amount of time recovering. The former No. 6 overall pick in the draft is batting .312 this season with 10 home runs and a .793 OPS. He was a favorite in the Rookie of the Year race, too, though it's unclear if that will hold now with him out. The A's recalled Darrell Hernaiz on Tuesday, so he could help replace Wilson for the time being. Hernaiz was batting .305 with four home runs and 50 RBIs with their Triple-A affiliate in Las Vegas. The Athletics will enter Tuesday's matchup with the Seattle Mariners with a 46-63 record, which has them in last in the AL West standings. They entered the series with Seattle coming off a four-game sweep over the Astros, but they are still 15 games back in the divisional race.
Newsroom
5 days ago
- Politics
- Newsroom
Youth MPs – what are they good for?
A former politician says change is needed to the Youth Parliament system if it's to stay relevant. MP-turned political commentator Peter Dunne says the scheme isn't just 'a rag-tag collection of young people coming together for a couple of days to play at being MPs,' but if the event is going to be taken seriously, more consistency is required around its processes. That's not the case at the moment, in everything from how the teens are selected to the quality of the mentorship they're getting. The triennial event usually passes under the media radar, but this year's event was overshadowed by what a handful of youth MPs said was censorship of their speeches. Dunne says he could understand the intention behind the message from the Ministry of Youth Development, which asked some students to remove parts of their speeches where they lacked political neutrality, but the issue could have been handled better. In the end, none of the students were stopped from making their speeches, even if they didn't make the changes. Youth Parliament has been held every three years for the past three decades and is described by the government as, 'a unique opportunity for young New Zealanders to learn first-hand about our democracy, influence government decision-making, and have their voices heard.' In many ways it's like the real thing with MPs selecting teens to represent them for a couple of days in Parliament where they debate, give speeches and discuss fictional legislation. Dunne says often the young adults outshine the older MPs. 'The contrast has usually been between the impeccable behaviour of the youth MPs and the somewhat unruly behaviour of their adult counterparts,' he says. The first Youth Parliament was held in 1995 and initially was just a couple of days. Now the programme has expanded, running from April to August and Dunne questions how much teens take out of those extra two months and 29 days. 'And more importantly, what weight is attached to that? They've got no formal status in the community, so what role can they play?' he asks. Dunne says much of what the young aspiring politicians learn and do is dependent on the MP they are mentored by. 'In some cases they won't do very much, in some cases the MP will work actively with them and assign them a particular project,' Dunne says. There also aren't any rules around how MPs select their mentee. Some get applicants to write essays, this year David Seymour held an election, and Dunne says a couple just shoulder tap the kids of a mate. 'The time is right to have a proper review into its function and purpose, including the role of the youth MPs, how they're selected and what are reasonable expectations of them. 'Because I think that with a much clearer focus the Youth Parliament can play a much greater role than it has done to date,' Dunne says. Oscar Duffy, representing List MP Melissa Lee, became interested in politics last year when his Nan was in hospital. 'She's a Māori lady and she didn't have the best experience … so that was a pretty key driver in me being interested in what's going on. 'Obviously there's so much tension between Māori and the Crown … and that affects my family really directly,' he says. Duffy agrees that the degree of mentorship varies. He spent substantial time working on projects in his community and in Lee's Mount Albert office but says others didn't have the same experience. '[Ministers] have no time right? Ministers are so busy, I roomed with Simeon Brown's youth MP and he didn't really see Simeon a lot, if at all,' he says. Duffy sees Youth Parliament as an opportunity for those interested in politics to get an insight into the system. He says everyone attending this year had a keen interest in advocacy and change making, but he admits that at times some see their role as more important than it is. 'There's just a lot of politically charged people in one room.' If he could change one thing Duffy would raise the age bracket for youth MPs because he thinks 16 is too young. 'Even just move it up one year, 17-19, so there's more first year uni students who have been through high school, who have seen the whole system,' he says. Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here. You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.
USA Today
6 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Steelers veteran guard added to Non-Football Injury list to start training camp
The Pittsburgh Steelers have placed veteran LG Isaac Seumalo on the Active/NFI (Non-Football Injury) List to start training camp. As the Steelers reported to Saint Vincent College, HC Mike Tomlin stated that Seumalo was placed on the NFI List with a soft-tissue injury — but expressed confidence that backup guard Spencer Anderson can step up if needed. "I don't have a specific timeline for Isaac, as I sit here today," Tomlin told reporters during Wednesday's press conference. "Because I haven't had intimate meetings with the medical staff — just in terms of the declaration. But certainly, I'm more comfortable with Spence. Isaac didn't get a lot of work in the spring, and Spence did. And Spence has played a lot of ball for us here in recent years, particularly at that position group." Seumalo, one of the most underrated Steelers signings in 2023, delivered a career performance last season — earning his first Pro Bowl selection for his efforts. He did, however, miss the first four weeks of the Steelers' 2024 regular season with a pectoral injury — and it's safe to say Pittsburgh isn't going to take any chances with him at training camp. For up-to-date Steelers coverage, follow us on X @TheSteelersWire and give our Facebook page a like.
Mint
20-07-2025
- Politics
- Mint
Srinath Raghavan unpacks Indira Gandhi's controversial legacy during the Emergency years
I am a child of the Indira Gandhi era. Through my formative years, she was Prime Minister. Until 1977, it never occurred to me that men could aspire to this position. Consider what an amazing reversal this is in a patriarchal, misogynistic society—that a little girl thought that only women could lead her country. Of course, this was always with the chorus of Indian male voices saying derisively, 'That woman (this or that) …" Even back then, I knew that tone was reserved for women—women drivers, women managers, women entrepreneurs and, of course, women Prime Ministers. No matter, as that little girl, I still wanted to be 'that woman." This book is not about 'that woman." The title, Indira Gandhi and the Years that Transformed India, is misleading. What it is, is a history of India from 1966-84. Also read: Let women reclaim the right to rage The prologue sets the stage, moving between Indira Gandhi's biography and a potted history of the first one-and-a-half decades after independence. In the first chapter, Srinath Raghavan traces the simultaneous decline of the Congress party's dominance and Gandhi's attempt to consolidate her position. It accounts for the economic crises of the mid-1960s and narrates the backstage machinations within the Congress, when Gandhi proved to be not such a 'gungi gudiya" (or 'dumb doll," as the socialist leader, Ram Manohar Lohia, called her) after all. The fractured mandate of 1967, the split in the Congress party and the 1972 election move the story forward. The detailed reconstruction of all of the attendant intrigue and controversy is quite remarkable. The outstanding chapter in the book—no surprise, given that Raghavan is a military historian—is the one on the 1971 war. The chapter weaves together the emerging story from East Pakistan, the international context and Gandhi's domestic challenges. If you had not read about this critical year in Indian history, these pages would be the place to start. It segues from the end of the war to the growing power of the Prime Minister and the way the argument began to build for the important constitutional amendment that was passed in 1977—the 42nd Amendment—and remains contentious. This Amendment added the words 'Socialist" and 'Secular" to the Preamble; added a part on Fundamental Duties of citizens; strengthened the Concurrent List at the expense of the State List; limited judicial review of laws; extended the duration of President's Rule to one year and that of the Lok Sabha to six years. Some of this was rolled back in subsequent amendments. Raghavan pays a great deal of attention to economic policy in this period, including bank nationalisation and the constitutional debates on property rights. It is interesting that the only mention of India's first nuclear tests in Pokharan in 1974 is this: '…the prime minister even burnished her Caesarist credentials by testing a nuclear device to rapturous applause." Given the way in which Raghavan reconstructs policy debates and decision-making, it would have been interesting to read more but perhaps, he chose to leave this out because others, such as Itty Abraham, George Perkovich, Kanti Bajpai and Bharat Karnad, have written extensively on this. The next chapter is devoted to Jayaprakash Narayan's movement that culminated in the Janata Party experiment. What came to be known as the JP movement was a mobilisation of student protests with the support of some opposition parties. They gained enough momentum to give the government pause and this became the pretext for the imposition of Emergency. Raghavan reserves his most colourful descriptions for this period—'The polar night of the emergency" and 'The dark and gnarled stretches that led to this decision"—almost as if we might miss the point that these were bad times. To use Indian newspaper headline language, there is virtually no one that Raghavan does not 'slam" in the Emergency chapter—from Indira Gandhi to Nani Palkhivala ('Such are the vagaries of the liberal conscience that Palkhivala not only agreed to appear for Indira Gandhi…") to Justices Y.V. Chandrachud and P.N. Bhagwati. The chapter on the Emergency recounts in parallel the programmes that the government promoted vigorously, the manoeuvres of an imprisoned and underground but coalescing opposition and, also, what came to be called the 'excesses" of Sanjay Gandhi's Youth Congress. Raghavan writes about the one-and-a-half years of the Janata Party government under Morarji Desai and Charan Singh just as unsparingly, making note of every intransigence, foible and egotistical assertion. The final chapter takes us from Gandhi's return to power in January 1980 to her assassination in October 1984. This is a period in which India was witness to growing unrest in three regions—Assam, over citizenship; Punjab, over the demand for a separate Sikh state; and Kashmir, where the push-pull of Centre-State relations was fomenting the conditions for the militancy that would come. Describing the world in which Gandhi came of age politically, the author writes, '…a wilfully cultivated aura of ruthlessness—as distinct from a highly developed instinct for power—was apparently her shield in an arena of politics shot through with gendered mores: one in which a woman prime minister could casually be called a 'gungi gudiya'... or a 'chokri' (derisive term for girl)." For all this gender sensitivity, in a nod to other writings on these years, he mentions five male authors but misses Nayantara Sahgal and Sagarika Ghose's work. When one later reads sexist phrases (most likely inadvertently used) like '…she did succeed in molesting the constitution" and 'More pregnant was her claim" (about the Congress mandate in 1971), it is hard to overlook them. That Raghavan is not a fan of Gandhi is made abundantly clear in the book, not just because the calculus of her political actions leads us to a critical appraisal but because his use of adjectives and adjectival clauses makes sure we know this. Writing about her first assumption of Prime Ministerial office, we are told about 'her shallow puddle of experience" and then the word 'Caesarist" appears over and over, sometimes as description and sometimes as explanation of other things. I would have enjoyed coming to a conclusion on my own based on the very detailed narrative he constructs, but then these were my formative years and perhaps unfamiliar readers need the signposts. Raghavan writes in his Prologue, '…this book was written in a time when a new political configuration was crystallizing in Indian democracy. It would be idle to suggest that my political views on this recent turn have not shaded this historical account… I have sought to write a history that 'supplies the antidote to every generation's illusion that its own problems are uniquely oppressive.'" He is also writing at a time when chunks of Indian history are literally being erased from our textbooks. This is a good book for those trying to fill in the blanks about a period to which everyone now refers but ever-fewer people remember first-hand. What we hear on official channels is a version where successive Indira Gandhi governments accomplished nothing but the oppression of today's rulers whose role in resisting the Emergency is lionised. Was Gandhi good or bad, the best or the worst? In our fact-free, nuance-free times, Raghavan's book makes an important contribution by writing in detail about the decision-making process on a number of policies—from the first stirrings of an idea or a crisis to the various points of view as they emerged and crystallised to the implementation and consequences of that idea. This lets us see that nothing about government is easy, even for 'Caesarist" Prime Ministers! On economic and foreign policy, and even on the question of constitutional amendment, despite his own disapproval, Raghavan lets us see someone who asks for opinions and considers them thoughtfully even though she ultimately follows her instinct. In fact, one of the strengths of the book is the dispassionate reconstruction of policy processes and outcomes. On bank nationalisation, for example, Raghavan says that while later writing has judged this as a politically expedient decision by Indira Gandhi, he also writes about its actual impact in giving the state access to more funds and taking the reach of the banking sector into rural India. Overall, I am not sure how accessible this book is for the general reader. Within the chapters, the narrative sometimes jumps around, almost requiring you to know this era to follow. The language is sometimes difficult and sometimes chatty. Reading about these years always feels personal to me. To encounter the years of one's life in another person's words is a strange experience because you want to jump in and say, 'I don't remember it like that" or 'I also remember this". Despite this personal connection, this book did not draw me in. What I missed was more quotations from Gandhi's own letters and notes. In a book titled 'Indira Gandhi," I missed her voice. The writing has a personal quality because the author has such a strong opinion of the protagonist-who-isn't and yet, it is impersonal (not dispassionate) as a textbook would be. This may be to your reading taste or not. That diminishes neither the solid historical research nor the astounding detail in which historical events are described in the book. Swarna Rajagopalan is a political scientist and peace educator. Also read: Writer Gideon Haigh on the foremost rivalry in cricket today
Powys County Times
17-07-2025
- Business
- Powys County Times
Fewer people claimed non-dom tax status in UK ahead of Government crackdown
The number of non-dom taxpayers in the UK dipped last year prior to the Government clamping down on the tax status, official figures show. There were about 73,700 people claiming non-domiciled tax status in the year ending in April last year, according to estimates from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). This was 400 fewer than the 2022-23 tax year, or a dip of about 0.5%. The number of non-doms, according to self-assessment tax returns, stood 3,900 below that in the tax year ending 2020. It indicates a slowdown in the number of people claiming the tax status following a post-pandemic resurgence. Non-domiciled means UK residents whose permanent home, or their 'domicile' for tax purposes, is outside the UK. The regime meant that so-called non-doms paid tax in the UK only on income generated in the UK – meaning any income earned overseas was exempt from British taxation. However, the Labour Government abolished the non-dom tax status in April following backlash that wealthy residents could enjoy the benefits of living in the UK without paying as much tax. Previous chancellor Jeremy Hunt estimated that scrapping the regime would raise about £2.7 billion for the Treasury by 2028-29. Recent data showed the UK saw the biggest fall in billionaires on record amid the Government non-dom clampdown. The Sunday Times Rich List said there were fewer of the world's 'super rich' coming to live in Britain. HMRC's data published on Thursday showed that some £9 billion was raised from non-doms paying income tax, capital gains tax and national insurance last year. This was a £107 million increase on the prior year, despite the dip in the number of individuals.
