Latest news with #NCO
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Kokua Line: Is online vote kept private?
Question : To vote in Honolulu's neighborhood board elections, the voter goes to a website, inputs a unique password and PIN they received in the mail, makes their selections and submits their online ballot. Does this system ensure voter privacy, so that no one knows who a specific voter voted for ? If yes, how ? I did not cast my ballot this time around because I could not find an explanation of how the online voting system works to ensure a secret ballot. Answer : Voting for Oahu's 2025 neighborhood board elections ran from April 25 through May 16. Election results are expected today after paper mail-in ballots postmarked by May 16 are counted (voters unable to vote online could request a paper ballot ). Results will be posted on the website of the municipal government's Neighborhood Commission Office, . As for your questions, here's how the online voting system works, according to emails from Jackson Coley, an NCO spokesperson, who said he based the responses on information from the city's Department of Information Technology : 'Yes, the system ensures voter privacy by design. Here's how : 'Unique Credentials : Each voter receives a private, unique passcode and PIN via USPS mail, ensuring only authorized individuals can access the voting portal. 'No Public Access : There is no public website or database to query or identify who voted for whom, preserving ballot secrecy. 'Restricted Database : Ballot data is stored in a secure, restricted database with limited access, and Neighborhood Commission Office employees cannot retrieve individual voting records through their admin tools. 'Legal Safeguards : The only way to identify a specific voter's choices would require a court-ordered subpoena, which is a formal and highly controlled process. 'This structure prevents unauthorized access to individual votes, ensuring that no one (including the Neighborhood Commission Office ) can determine how a specific voter cast their ballot.' Oahu has 36 neighborhood boards, according to the NCO website, which are meant to assure citizens' participation in government decisions. Social Security town hall Social Security will be the topic as AARP Hawai 'i hosts a telephone town hall Saturday at 9 a.m. with U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and Chad Mullen, AARP's director of financial security. People who have participated in past AARP telephone town halls will get a call to join, while others can call in toll-free at 833-305-0175 when the forum begins, according to an AARP news release. Participants will be able to ask questions, it said. More than 1 in 5 Hawaii residents receive Social Security payments, according to AARP, a nonprofit group representing the interests of older Americans. Mahalo On May 16 I had an incident with my car in the Alii Place parking garage. I was going to park in this man's stall after he left. Well, my car decided to stop in his path. Dead. I approached him and another young man, Arthur, who were so helpful pushing my car into the vacant stall. Arthur then jumped into my car and fiddled with the gear shift and buttons. Voila, it started. It seems I have a Sport function on the gear shift, and I tripped it. I was so blessed to have had two guardian angels helping me with this weird situation.—Linda (Editor's note : Activating Sport mode shouldn't have caused your car to die, according to our quick review of the power-boosting option, but regardless of the cause, we're glad help was on hand. This feature is not limited to sports cars—it's common on sedans and SUVs—and generally is activated with the touch of a button or the flip of the switch, allowing a vehicle to accelerate faster while merging onto a highway, for example.)------------Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 2-200, Honolulu, HI 96813 ; call 808-529-4773 ; or email.------------
Time of India
09-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Can India create an effective framework to bridge the skill gap in its workforce?
Skill shortage, where job vacancies remain unfilled due to a lack of qualified candidates. Skill gap, where individuals, even if formally qualified, lack actual competencies needed to perform effectively on the job. The study also broadens the definition of 'skills' to include not only technical and vocational proficiency, but also cognitive and socio-emotional capabilities - all of which are critical for productivity and long-term employability. To test and validate the proposed framework, the study took a stepwise approach. Live Events Selected 7 high-growth sectors based on such indicators as their contribution to GVA, employment share, growth trajectory and strategic relevance. Additional parameters such as input-output multipliers and sunrise potential were used to identify sectors most likely to drive employment in the short-to-medium term. Roles, as defined by Sector Skill Councils (SSCs), were aligned with National Classification of Occupations (NCO) 2015 to ensure consistency across data and analytical frameworks. This harmonisation enables more accurate forecasting and helps align skill development efforts with actual labour market needs. Macro-level workforce analysis included examining the profile of workers - educational qualifications (general, technical and vocational), gender and occupation types - using available national datasets like PLFS and Annual Survey of Industries. Simultaneously, the study identified geographical clusters across states and districts to understand where economic and employment activity is concentrated. Input-output modelling techniques used to forecast shifts in job demand over a 3-year horizon. Drawing on data from NAS, PLFS and international growth forecasts, these simulations offered insights into the scale and nature of workforce requirements likely to emerge across sectors. Identification of top occupations or potentially facing skill shortages and/or gaps, stakeholders across the value chain were systematically mapped and interviewed. India needs a dynamic framework to track skill demand and supply. While national and state-level studies have been conducted since 2011, lack of a common methodology has made it difficult to reconcile a national 2024-25, skill development and entrepreneurship ministry and NCAER launched a study to build a unified, scalable framework for skill gap assessment . This aimed to create a regularly updated system for tracking skill needs across states and sectors. It proposes a dynamic framework that enables continuous monitoring and periodic countries with mature skill ecosystems rely on a combination of quantitative and qualitative tools to assess skill needs. India, too, has seen fragmented efforts by multiple institutions, each applying its own framework creates a baseline from which governments, training providers and employers can work together to better target resources, update training curricula, revise qualification packs, and identify underserved regions or occupations requiring focused it requires additional steps needed to make the system fully operational and responsive to real-time changes:A more robust and granular survey instrument can capture data on employment levels, wage structures, qualifications and skill requirements across non-agricultural enterprises, with district-level representation to ensure that local workforce trends are adequately reflected in national vacancies could serve as a practical proxy for identifying hard-to-fill roles. A common national definition of such vacancies would allow for consistent tracking across regions and labour market insights drawn from enterprise records, online job portals and digital employment platforms could help identify emerging occupations, spatial mismatches and shifting industry needs. This would allow for quicker course corrections and timely updates to training curricula and qualification task ahead is to institutionalise the MSDE-NCAER framework and align it with evolving labour market trends through regular data flows and support state-level adoption. For this to happen, skill-gap studies must become central to how we plan, fund and implement investments.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The flimsy excuse and high cost of a military and birthday parade for the President
President-elect Donald Trump prepares to speak at the conservative gathering AmericaFest in Phoenix on Dec. 29, 2024. (Photo by Gage Skidmore | CC BY-SA 2.0) It's too bad President Trump's Vietnam-era bone spurs prevented him from first-hand participation in a military parade. Generations of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen will attest that it ain't all that much fun. I know that from my 30-plus years in Army service as a private in the ranks, an NCO, and an officer – doesn't matter whether you're in the back or at the front of the formation. They'd rather have the day off. Especially if it's your birthday. And particularly if the true purpose is an homage to the 'base commander.' Trump has wanted a pass-in-review of his very own since he witnessed a July 14 Bastille Day parade in 2017 as guest of French President Emmanuel Macron. 'We're going to have to try and top it,' he promised. Now comes together the 'perfect storm' of birthday observances: On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress authorized formation of the nation's Army. (As a point of information, the National Guard was formed on Dec. 13, 1636, making it 389 years old.) On June 14, Fred and Mary Anne Trump became parents of their fourth child, Donald, in Queens, New York. Fred was the son of German immigrants and Mary Anne herself immigrated from Scotland. (Interestingly, Donald's grandfather, Friedrich, emigrated from Germany to escape the military draft.) Initial planning for observance of the Army's 250th birthday did not include a parade. The Army birthday festival, in the planning stages for about two years, was to include an array of activities and displays on the National Mall, including Army Stryker armored vehicles, Humvees, helicopters and other equipment. As recently as April, the White House in a statement said that 'no military parade has been scheduled.' Shortly thereafter, though, creative minds in the White House saw opportunity and determined the Army's Semiquincentennial, as 250th anniversaries are called, was the perfect cover to link the President's 80th birthday and 'to get this parade that President Trump has been wanting' said a staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Trump's hopes for a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in 2019 during his first term, à la the Bastille Day extravaganza, were deflated by costs estimated near $92 million. We now find ourselves in a time when the chief executive is ordering sums slashed – the likes of which we've never seen before – from the federal budget and thousands of jobs eliminated without congressional involvement, all in the name of economy. Cost estimates of Trump's grandiose 2025 birthday parade are yet to be made public but if the 2019 event was $92 million …. Let's see, a six-year inflation factor …. But then again, we need remember who this guy thinks he is: '… I run the country and the world,' he recently told The Atlantic magazine. And now he showed us that he thinks he's pretty good Pope material. Columnist Peter D. Fox lives in Big Timber, and reports he was in more military parades than he cares to remember while on active duty and in Army National Guard service. Other veterans may agree that a big part of forming up was the 'hurry up and wait' until dignitaries in the reviewing stand arrived and got settled. Fox was a journalist at The Billings Gazette, taught journalism and was the executive director of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Yahoo
Former Wright-Patt commander is now confined on base
Apr. 16—Col. Christopher Meeker has started the confinement portion of his sentence on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the base he once led as installation commander. "He is at the confinement facility on base," Derek Kaufman, spokesman for the Air Force Materiel Command, said Wednesday. In a one-day court-martial at the base Tuesday, Meeker, the former commander of the 88th Air Base Wing, pled guilty to willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer and fraternization. During the trial, Meeker acknowledged having a personal and sexual relationship with a non-commissioned officer at Wright-Patterson, a staff sergeant, after Lt. Gen. Donna Shipton, commander of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at the base, ordered him not to have contact with the NCO. As part of a plea agreement revealed during the trial, prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss a specification of extramarital sexual conduct against Meeker. He was sentenced to 21 days confinement, a reprimand, and forfeiture of $14,000, or $7,000 of pay a month for two months. In military courts-martial, the sentencing phase immediately follows the findings phase, which determines guilt or innocence, Air Force Materiel Command said in a statement. "Absent restrictions imposed by terms of the plea agreement, the maximum punishment was dismissal, reprimand, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for seven years," AFMC said. Meeker told a judge that he "willfully disobeyed" the no-contact order, that his behavior demonstrated a lack of personal and professional discipline, and he acted "selfishly, for my own personal happiness." Prosecutors argued that Meeker's contact with the staff sergeant took place well after Shipton had extended the original no-contact order in March last year. In an interview with Air Force investigators, the NCO painted a portrait of nearly daily contact with Meeker, electronic conversations wiped away by the Signal app and meetings for sex "four to five times a week," at a time when the no-contact order was in place. The staff sergeant has since left the Air Force Force. "Col. Meeker has been full of apologies and devoid of resolution," a prosecutor, Capt. Connor McAfee, said in a closing argument during the trial at the headquarters of the 88th Air Base Wing.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Yahoo
NEW DETAILS: Former Wright-Patt commander is now confined on base
Apr. 16—Col. Christopher Meeker has started the confinement portion of his sentence on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the base he once led as installation commander. "He is at the confinement facility on base," Derek Kaufman, spokesman for the Air Force Materiel Command, said Wednesday. In a one-day court-martial at the base Tuesday, Meeker, the former commander of the 88th Air Base Wing, pled guilty to willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer and fraternization. During the trial, Meeker acknowledged having a personal and sexual relationship with a non-commissioned officer at Wright-Patterson, a staff sergeant, after Lt. Gen. Donna Shipton, commander of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at the base, ordered him not to have contact with the NCO. As part of a plea agreement revealed during the trial, prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss a specification of extramarital sexual conduct against Meeker. He was sentenced to to 21 days confinement, a reprimand, and forfeiture of $14,000, or $7,000 of pay a month for two months. In military courts-martial, the sentencing phase immediately follows the findings phase, which determines guilt or innocence, Air Force Materiel Command said in a statement. "Absent restrictions imposed by terms of the plea agreement, the maximum punishment was dismissal, reprimand, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for seven years," AFMC said. Meeker told a judge that he "willfully disobeyed" the in-person and electronic no-contact order, that his behavior demonstrated a lack of personal and professional discipline, and he acted "selfishly, for my own personal happiness." Prosecutors argued that Meeker's contact with the staff sergeant took place well after Shipton had extended an original no-contact order in March last year. In an interview with Air Force investigators, the NCO painted a portrait of nearly daily contact with Meeker, electronic conversations wiped away by the Signal app and meetings for sex "four to five times a week," at a time when the no-contact order was in place. The staff sergeant has since left the Air Force Force. "Col. Meeker has been full of apologies and devoid of resolution," a prosecutor, Capt. Connor McAfee, said in a closing argument during the trial at the headquarters of the 88th Air Base Wing.
