Kulgam/ Baramulla, Dec 7: Jammu and Kashmir launched a 100-day drive to end tuberculosis (TB) with Minister for Health and Medical Education, Social Welfare and Education, Sakeena Masood (Itoo) launching the campaign across J&K on Saturday. Virtually launching the 100-day campaign under the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) across J&K at Kashmir Skill and Simulation Centre, RIHFW Dhobiwan, Tangmarg in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district, the health minister said, “TB continues to be a major public health challenge in the country, but with determination, innovation, and a collective effort, we can overcome it.” She said that this campaign represents an unwavering commitment to achieving the vision of TB-free J&K. The minister underlined that over the next 100 days, the department would aim to accelerate TB detection, ensure timely treatment and promote awareness about preventive measures. She said that this was not just a government initiative but a people’s movement that calls for active participation from every corner of society. The health minister said that the present government was focused on reaching the unreached, establishing advanced healthcare facilities, strengthening diagnostics, enhancing community engagement and ensuring no one was left behind in the fight against TB. “With the support of healthcare workers, local stakeholders, and the people, the Health Department will achieve significant milestones during this campaign,” she said. MLA Beerwah Muhammad Shafi, MLA Gulmarg Farooq Ahmad Shah, and MLA Uri Sajjad Shafi commended the efforts of the health staff for their contributions and achievements. They reiterated their full support for the campaign, highlighting that the objective of this 100-day campaign was to accelerate efforts in eliminating TB, reaching every corner of the community, spreading awareness about the disease, and ensuring access to free and high-quality TB care. Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, Meera Srivastava urged healthcare providers, industry leaders, corporate organisations, counsellors, media professionals, and citizens to collaborate in this effort. She emphasised the importance of ensuring that no one was left behind in the fight against TB, striving for a TB-free community where no child loses a parent, no student misses school, and no worker loses their livelihood due to TB. Srivastava reinforced that this 100-day campaign was not merely a health initiative but a commitment to building healthier and stronger communities. Director of Health Services, Kashmir, Dr Jehangir Bakshi along with all other participants took the TB Pledge, demonstrating a strong commitment to the elimination of tuberculosis in the Kashmir division. He said that the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) in Kashmir had made remarkable progress. State Tuberculosis Officer, Kashmir, Dr Adhfar Yasien delivered the opening remarks on the 100-day intensified campaign for TB Elimination (Ni-kshay Shivir). She emphasised the significant importance of this campaign, noting that TB was not only a health issue but also a major social and economic burden, particularly affecting the most vulnerable segments of society. Dr Adhfar also highlighted that India accounts for approximately 27 percent of the world’s TB cases, emphasising the urgency of this ongoing fight. “TB continues to claim lives, disrupt families, and reduce the productivity of entire communities,” she said. Divisional Nodal Officer, National Health Mission (NHM), Dr Mushtaq Ahmad thanked all the visiting dignitaries and participants present in the occasion, who have dedicated themselves to this cause. He called on all to unite and ensure the success of this 100-day campaign, marking a major step toward a TB-free India and TB-Free Kashmir. Additional Deputy Commissioner, Baramulla and health functionaries from various districts of the Kashmir division were also present at the campaign launch. Three districts in Kashmir – Budgam, Anantnag, and Pulwama – have been declared TB-free. Additionally, two districts, Srinagar and Kupwara, have received gold certification under the Sub-National Certification and J&K has received a bronze medal in the same category. Over 15 million TB cases have been successfully treated since the start of the programme and significant improvements in detection and recovery rates have been achieved due to better diagnostic and treatment tools. Despite these advancements, challenges like stigma, late diagnosis, and treatment dropouts remain, and the 100-day campaign aims to directly address these issues through the involvement of all stakeholders. During this 100-day intensified campaign, health teams would focus on conducting active case findings by visiting high-risk and vulnerable populations, including malnourished individuals, diabetics, smokers, cancer patients, tribal communities, and other at-risk groups. The goal is to detect TB cases early, raise awareness about TB symptoms, prevention, and treatment, and provide continuous medical and psychological support to ensure successful recovery. Additionally, community leaders, NGOs, corporate organisations, counsellors, and health workers will be engaged to serve as ambassadors for change. After the event, two TB eradication vans were flagged off, one for district Srinagar, which was flagged off by the Director of Health Services, Kashmir, Dr Jahingir Bakshi, Chief Medical Officer, Srinagar, Dr Tahir Sajad, and District Tuberculosis Officer, Srinagar, Dr Abdul Roof, and the other for the district Baramulla was flagged off by Additional District Development Commissioner, Baramulla, Syed Qamar Sajad, Chief Medical Officer, Baramulla, Dr Mastoora Akhter, and District Tuberculosis Officer, Baramulla, Dr Hafizulla.NoneBETHANY – Ronald E. Andrews, 82, of Bethany, passed away peacefully at home on Dec. 4, 2024, surrounded by the love of his family, after a valiant battle with pancreatic cancer. He was born Nov. 13, 1942, to the late Edward and Emma (Zimmer) Andrews. He was the beloved husband of Mary Anne Andrews and devoted father of Kevin, Joan and Mark Andrews. Ronald was a Vietnam era veteran, having served his country from 1961 to 1965 as a Navy corpsman. In March of 1965, he married the love of his life, Mary Anne Haas. He went on to work as a nuclear medicine technologist for many years. Ronald was involved in the establishment of the Society of Nuclear Medicine Technologists and was a past president of the Long Island chapter. Ronald and Mary Anne lived in Syosset, N.Y., for 20 years and raised their children there before moving to Bethany. Until this past June, Ronald stayed busy working at Macy’s/Bloomingdale’s distribution center in Cheshire two days a week. For the past 15 years he was an active member of the Waterbury Chorale and loved singing with them at their spring and Christmas concerts. Ronald was a lively man with a great sense of humor. He had many different hobbies ranging from making beer, wine, sourdough bread, and limoncello, to being an avid reader and genealogist. Ronald was able to date his family’s ancestry all the way back to the late 1500s. He was a big New York Yankees fan and watched many home games. He also had a love for traveling with Mary Anne and close friends, going on cruises to Europe, Alaska and the Caribbean, and family vacations to Montauk and the Catskills. Ronald leaves behind to cherish his memories, his wife Mary Anne of almost 60 years; his children Kevin Andrews and his spouse Rebecca Smith, Joan Andrews and her husband Paul Banelis, and Mark Andrews and his significant other Omaira Bernard; his grandchildren, Nicolas Andrews, Alexander Andrews, Oscar Andrews, and Maximilian Banelis; close friend and former daughter-in-law Maria Antonia Andrews, mother of Nicolas, Alexander and Oscar; numerous nieces and nephews; and his beloved cat Rocky. He was predeceased by his four brothers and one sister. Family and friends are invited to gather Dec. 12, 2024, from 4 to 7 p.m. at Prospect Memorial/The Palmerie Family Funeral Home, 122 Waterbury Road, Prospect, CT 06712. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated for Ronald Dec. 13, 2024, at noon at St. Anthony Church, 4 Union City Road, Prospect, CT 06712; all are welcome to meet the family at the funeral home that morning at 10:45 a.m. Inurnment will follow Mass at the Connecticut State Veterans Cemetery, 317 Bow Lane, Middletown, CT 06457, where military honors will be accorded. Prospect Memorial/The Palmerie Family Funeral Home is honored to care for and assist Ronald’s family, and invites you to share your words of comfort for them on his tribute wall at prospectmemorial.com.
‘I’ve always been a team player’: Ben Carroll on the VCE exam crisis and what drives him
L ong before he started making guns with a 3D printer, Viljam Nyman was a kid who was bullied. In a document police later found on his computer, titled “The life story of how I became a far-right extremist”, Nyman described his childhood in Lahti, a city in southern Finland, being picked on by other kids and feeling abandoned by the adults around him. He wrote that this experience taught him something: “‘Be yourself’ or ‘don’t care’ were really bad pieces of advice. Violence and power, or the threat of using it, were actually the things that mattered. Equality and accepting difference were just words on paper, naive and idealistic fantasies. Human nature, in reality, was discriminatory and racist.” In 2005, when Nyman was 11, violent protests broke out in a number of European countries after a Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in response to a debate about Islam and self-censorship. Why was it, Nyman wondered, that he was mocked for being different and no one did anything about it, but criticising a religion from faraway countries was off limits? He wrote in the document that “all of this” reinforced his belief that something was wrong with society and no one was on his side. Nyman became obsessed with Hitler and Nazi Germany. He began with the notion that bullies could be classified as subhuman and sent to camps, but became fascinated by the discipline and order of the Third Reich. As he got older, he immersed himself in online message boards that shared antisemitic theories. Until this point, Nyman had spent a lot of time playing video games. Now, he thought, he needed to do more so that he would not be a disgrace to the white race. He started to feel something he had not felt before: a sense of purpose. In 2020, when Nyman wrote the document, he was 26. He was still living in Lahti and he still did not have many friends. He was often lonely and resented not being in a relationship. Most of his social life was conducted over the internet; he regularly posted virulent racial hatred about black people, Muslims and Jews on far-right messaging platforms. He also attended far-right music events, which take place regularly around Finland, meeting like-minded people scattered across the country with whom he kept in touch online. On the encrypted messaging app Telegram, he regularly chatted with three friends in particular who shared his views. The police suspect they connected at far-right events. They were Niko Petteri Suikki and Tuukka Karinkanta, both in their 20s, and Jyrki Niemi, who was in his 60s. One of the things the men discussed was their shared belief in “accelerationism”, the idea that violence is a necessary means to hasten social collapse and introduce new power structures – ideally ethno-nationalist and authoritarian. One accelerationist tactic is to attempt to trigger a race war by carrying out attacks on ethnic minority groups in the hope of provoking retaliation. Rightwing accelerationists also emphasise the importance of stockpiling weapons in order to be prepared when society collapses. In different messaging threads and groups – including one named “Seize Finland by any means necessary” – the men shared thoughts about the coming race war. Sometimes this was couched in the ironic humour often seen in the far-right scene (“If this discussion is read by a government actor, I want to underline that I am in this chat by accident. Maybe someone else added me, I don’t know why I’m here,” Nyman wrote in December 2021). But frequently it was shockingly racist and violent. “The pleasure of shooting black gangs might take precedence over the annoyance of a prison sentence,” Nyman wrote to the group in August 2022. “At this rate, we will soon be a minority in our own country if we do not oppose those who enable the import of blacks,” Karinkanta wrote in a message to Suikki the same month, adding, “Many of them wouldn’t be ready when the race war starts.” Suikki responded with a joke about “shooting a negro”. To carry out shootings and stockpile weapons, you need guns. Nyman did not have a gun licence and was unlikely to get one. In November 2021, he bought his first 3D printer and immediately started printing gun parts. N yman was working from a blueprint, easily available online, for a model called the FGC-9, which revolutionised the world of 3D-printed weapons when it was published in March 2020. FGC stands for “fuck gun control” and 9 refers to the 9mm bullets it uses. The slogan reflects the ideological leaning of many involved in the development of 3D-printed guns. In an anonymised interview given after the manual was published, the creator of the FGC-9, who posted under the name JStark1809, said, “We fucked gun control for good ... Gun control is dead, and we killed it.” JStark1809 has since been revealed to be Jacob Duygu, a German man of Kurdish origin. In the FGC-9 manifesto, he called on people “to defend yourself and not be a victim to unjust firearm legislation any longer”. Elsewhere, he had posted about being an “incel”. In 2021, he was arrested by the German police. Two days later, he was found dead in a car parked outside his parents’ home in Hanover. He was 28. The German magazine Der Spiegel reported that an autopsy had been unable to determine the cause of death, but foul play and suicide had been ruled out. His mysterious death is the subject of many online conspiracy theories in the 3D-printed gun world. The 110-page FGC-9 manual takes readers through the process of making a weapon in meticulous detail, with step-by-step diagrams akin to those that accompany flat-pack furniture. Although 3D-printed weapons have been around since 2013, earlier models were rudimentary, requiring off-the-shelf parts manufactured by gun companies along with the 3D-printed parts, and usually firing just one or two shots before they disintegrated. In 2019, the white nationalist Stephan Balliet livestreamed a horrifying attack on a synagogue in the German town of Halle, carried out on Yom Kippur. Before the attack, he posted a manifesto online saying that one of his goals was to prove the viability of homemade weapons, including some that were 3D-printed. But on the live stream, his guns frequently jammed and he is heard cursing himself as a failure. (He did shoot and kill two people, and is serving a life sentence in prison.) The FGC-9 changed everything. Unlike those early models, the FGC-9 includes no regulated components: it can be made using just a 3D printer and parts available from a hardware store; it requires only some metalworking skills. Today, 3D printers are available for a couple of hundred pounds, while strong plastic polymers to print with are relatively inexpensive. The upper and lower receivers of the FGC-9 (the barrel assembly and trigger sections) are fully 3D-printed from plastic, as are the pistol grip and stock. The magazine can also be printed. Unlike previous 3D-printed gun models, it is a semi-automatic weapon. “It was revolutionary,” says Dr Rajan Basra, a researcher from King’s College London who studies 3D-printed weapons. The FGC-9 is now thought to be the most popular 3D-printed weapon in the world. It is particularly difficult to police, given that it doesn’t involve illegal parts. As Basra says, “You can’t regulate a steel tube or a spring.” The open-source manual was initially shared among niche gun manufacturing forums but quickly spread across the internet, and the guns have been manufactured around the world. “The guide is incredibly detailed,” Basra says. “There are videos online showing the entire process and the blueprints are shockingly easy to find – you can Google and get them in under five minutes.” The rise of these weapons is a particular concern in the UK, where 3D printing can circumvent extremely strict gun control laws. Since the FGC-9 manual was published four years ago, there have been at least 12 UK criminal cases involving these weapons. In October, 20-year-old Jack Robinson from Portsmouth was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for attempting to construct an FGC-9 and possessing documents that could be used for preparing an act of terrorism. Robinson, who was just 18 at the time of his arrest, had posted online with the username “kill Jews” and had a large amount of neo-Nazi material on his computer. Three men in Yorkshire accused of manufacturing FGC-9s to attack an Islamic centre are due to stand trial in 2025. This year, Abdiwahid Abdulkadir Mohamed, a 32-year-old Londoner, became the first known case of someone with jihadist sympathies being sentenced for possessing the FGC-9 manual and instructions for other homemade firearms (the crime was possessing documents likely to be useful for preparing an act of terrorism). But generally, around the world, 3D-printed guns have proved most attractive to organised criminals and people on the far right. “There are ideological reasons for this, such as the far-right emphasis on race war and stockpiling weapons, but it’s also a practical issue about who is sharing the blueprints online,” Basra says. “The extreme rightwing space overlaps with the hyperlibertarian idea that any gun control is a form of tyranny.” R ueben Dass is a researcher at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore who has compiled a database of arrests related to 3D-printed guns worldwide. “If you look at the numbers, 95% of the plots have been failures in the sense that people have been arrested before they actually shot the guns – for manufacture, possession, trafficking,” he explains. “But it’s a serious, growing risk because the technologies are becoming cheaper and more advanced and accessible.” Making a 3D-printed gun involves significantly more than simply downloading a blueprint and clicking print. To construct an FGC-9, you need drills, metalworking equipment and commitment. “You essentially turn yourself into a gunsmith. It involves frustration and trial and error and setbacks,” Basra says. “But many have followed these step-by-step instructions to make one.” The UK’s National Crime Agency says that although the weapon accounts for a small proportion of firearms cases overall, illicit interest is increasing. This is a serious concern for the authorities. While 3D-printed guns were considered to be illegal anyway by virtue of being a firearm, in November 2022 the UK government updated legislation to specifically outlaw possessing, buying or producing component parts for a 3D-printed gun. The NCA has urged the government to go further and outlaw having the blueprint at all, and there are currently two bills on this going through parliament. N yman started printing parts for his first FGC-9 in November 2021 and worked on it for months, acquiring a stick welder and an angle grinder to craft the metal sections of the gun. He frequently messaged the other three men about his progress, and sometimes they swapped ideas about how to avoid detection when buying parts, not all of which were easily available in Finland. “Did you explain that the parts were for a bicycle suspension?” Suikki asked Nyman in one exchange. “Yes,” he replied. “I said they were parts for a suspension fork; I didn’t have much more information, just that a friend asked me to make them, but my own equipment wasn’t good enough.” “I hope you’re paying in cash,” Suikki said. In another message, Nyman asked, “Any ideas for a believable story about what this part is for and what it locks, etc?” Suikki responded, “Say you’re building a safe for a school project, and since you’re an automation guy, you have to cut corners on the mechanical parts.” On 13 April, Nyman completed his first FGC-9. Niemi, the older man in the group, got hold of some 9mm bullets for it. (If you have a gun licence in Finland, it is not difficult to purchase bullets.) A few weeks later, Suikki took a train to Lahti from his home in Hyvinkää, around an hour away, to meet Nyman. They went into the forest to practise shooting and were elated to find the gun worked. Around the same time, Suikki borrowed it from Nyman and took it to his home town where he filmed himself shooting an immigrant family’s mailbox. Nyman soon started work on making more guns. In June, he rented out a warehouse to scale up his gun production. Within a few months, he would have four functioning FGC-9s. The men discussed plans to produce 15 weapons in total. Some would be hidden in case they were needed when the race war came. Others would be sold for between €1,000 and €3,000 each. (The 3D-printers cost around €250 each – by this stage, Nyman had three of them – while the other parts added up to a further €200-300 a gun.) In May, soon after Nyman finished constructing the first gun and ascertained that it could actually fire shots, he and Niemi discussed the possibility of carrying out attacks. “Now is not the time for small skirmishes; the attacks need to be of such calibre and so well-planned that they make headlines,” Niemi wrote on Telegram. In another message, he said, “That doesn’t mean we’ll be running around Helsinki with guns next week; it requires extensive planning, funding, and various preparations.” In August, Nyman messaged, “I’m leaning towards wearing an FGC-9 under a coat and going to East Helsinki or wherever those ‘roadman’ [street gang] blacks hang out.” In other messages, the men discussed the possibility of attacking critical infrastructure, including power stations, water supply systems and transportation hubs, with the aim of destabilising society and precipitating race war. “We need to hit them where it hurts. Multiple locations at once – make them scramble,” Nyman wrote in August 2022. Suikki replied, “If we time it right, the police won’t know what’s happening until it’s too late.” “The goal is to cause maximum confusion and fear,” Niemi said. “They need to feel like they’ve lost control.” Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion That same month, Suikki decided to toughen himself up for the coming race war. He took his cat to Niemi’s house, where he borrowed a gun and shot the cat three times. In a Telegram message to Karinkanta, he wrote that people who thought this was harsh were “probably ready to take it from a black man because they’re too scared to kill”. As Nyman pressed on with producing more FGC-9s, he did not know that police were on to him. Tuomas Kuure is a detective chief inspector in the Päijät-Häme region, of which Lahti is the main city. He is a polite, softly spoken man who has been a police officer for 20 years, mostly specialising in narcotics and organised crime. In early 2022, he got some surprising police intelligence: someone in Lahti was manufacturing guns using a 3D printer. The idea of 3D-printed guns wasn’t totally new to Kuure – there had been a couple of reported arrests for their manufacture in Finland – but it was the first time he’d ever worked on this crime himself, which made it exciting and nerve-racking. As he and his team started to investigate, they knew they had to think carefully about it. “We usually only did narcotics, and this was quite different,” Kuure tells me on a video call. “It’s easy for us to say, ‘OK, there’s some cocaine, let’s go through the normal process.’ But with this, we had to figure everything out from scratch. What do we need to show? And how can we show it?” As Nyman built his guns, Kuure, along with a team of five investigators and four officers on surveillance, were gathering information and biding their time. Kuure knew it was essential to wait for the right moment to make the arrests. If police acted too soon, before they knew for sure that the guns were capable of firing shots, it would be much harder to obtain a conviction for an aggravated firearms offence. “If the guns hadn’t been working, it would have been easy for them to say, ‘We’re not making guns, we’re just making prototypes or collectors’ items,’” Kuure says. But wait too long and the consequences could be much worse. I n late August 2022, Karinkanta took a train from his home in Oulu, a city in central Finland, to visit Nyman in Lahti to practise shooting the FGC-9s. Suikki was invited, too, but couldn’t make it. Nyman collected Karinkanta from the train station and they drove to a Lidl supermarket where they bought a watermelon. They drew a Star of David on the melon with a marker pen and drove to some woodland nearby where they filmed themselves firing shots at it. After this, they returned to the car and drove back to the warehouse Nyman had rented. “We sat in the car and smoked cigarettes,” Nyman later told interrogators. “I threw the weapons in the blue box inside the warehouse, then we drove back to my apartment.” When they got there, police officers were waiting to arrest them. “Nyman’s been taken,” Suikki messaged the Telegram group the next day. “Get out, scatter, we’ll regroup soon if we can,” Niemi replied. Kuure is used to investigating organised crime, where suspects usually answer “no comment” to every question. This was different. “These guys were more open,” he tells me. “None of them said they had terrorist motives, but about the guns they were clear: ‘I’ve shot these guns, I had them in my possession.’ Our main suspect quickly said he believes there will be confrontation between different ethnic groups. I think they might even be a bit proud because of their ideology – they think they are doing the right thing.” In his interrogation, though, Nyman insisted he did not make the guns with violent intent. Instead, he said he was worried about the energy crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the idea that Russia might invade Finland next. “I decided I should make a gun, so people wouldn’t just shoot me here,” he told police. “I’m such a survivalist that there were hundreds of jars of canned goods, nuts and so on in my apartment, and I had more dry food in storage downstairs ... I’m also prepared to defend my property and myself. The FGC-9s were not to initiate any kind of violence, they were mainly for self-defence.” It’s true that when police searched Nyman’s computer they found survivalist manuals, with tips for what to store and how to carry out rudimentary medical procedures at home in the event of injury. But there was also a huge amount of neo-Nazi and accelerationist material. And the messages Nyman had exchanged with the three other men told a very different story. Soon after Nyman and Karinkanta’s arrests, Niemi and Suikki were arrested, too. Police searched all their homes and devices, uncovering a significant arsenal of weaponry, mostly at Nyman’s apartment and the warehouse he had rented. Nyman had made four FGC-9s, with plans to produce more. He had also made a 3D-printed pen-pistol. Police found a large quantity of ammunition – about 1,400 9mm cartridges – and explosives. All the men had a considerable volume of extremist material on their devices. They had mistakenly believed deleting Telegram chats would remove them, but police were able to recover significant portions of their conversations, revealing the extent to which they had discussed manufacturing the weapons and potential attacks and targets. Just a few days before his arrest, Nyman had shared a link to a news article about Sanna Marin, then prime minister, giving a speech in Lahti; he asked, “Should I go with an FGC in a hoodie?” Perhaps most worryingly, when police searched Niemi’s house, they found a list of addresses of leftwing activists and politicians. But police struggled to find evidence of plans for a specific attack – and that made it hard to prove intent. “Our suspects didn’t have any particular or detailed plans, not that we had knowledge of, but they frequently discussed what type of things should be done and whom they would target with their actions,” Kuure says. The men were released on bail while police, along with investigators from Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation, continued to build their case. “We had functioning guns; from the device searches we had videos of the guns being used, we had parts, tools, printers,” Kuure says. This was clear evidence for firearms offences, but they wanted to pursue terrorism charges, too – and astonishingly, Finland had never seen anyone convicted for far-right terrorism. During this period, most of the men kept their heads down. Nyman did not. In December 2022, the mailbox shooting video was published online, to an account believed to be run by Nyman. Police already had a copy, as it had been discovered in the device search, but until this point it had not been made public. “We believe it was the main suspect that made those publications – maybe he wanted to show like-minded persons that this is possible,” Kuure says. In this period, out on bail, Nyman also posted his own modification of the FGC-9 blueprint online, explaining that he was frustrated that not all the parts were easily available in Finland and had updated the design to address this. “I found this constant ordering and waiting for packages frustrating and also a factor that increases the risk of getting caught,” he wrote. He bought himself a new 3D printer. Soon after this flurry of activity, he was arrested again. The trial began in September 2023. Nyman and Suikki were charged with aggravated firearms offences with terrorist intent; Karinkanta was charged with aiding and abetting this; Niemi was charged with firearms offences but not terrorism, due to insufficient evidence. Journalists filled the courtroom as prosecutors presented damning evidence from the Telegram message exchanges. The defendants argued that the guns weren’t that effective and the messages were pure fantasy. “It’s daydreaming that has no basis in reality,” Nyman’s lawyer said. Kuure followed news of the trial nervously. “I knew we had a lot of materials, but I didn’t know what it would take to get that terrorism conviction,” he says. For the last two days of the trial, he slipped into the courtroom to watch proceedings first-hand. As he heard the final cases presented, he began to feel more confident. The men were all found guilty. The verdicts against Nyman, Suikki and Karinkanta marked the first time in Finnish criminal history that anyone had been convicted for far-right terrorism. Nyman was sentenced to three years and four months in prison for the firearms offences and training to commit a terrorist act. Suikki was sentenced to one year and nine months, Karinkanta was handed a seven-month suspended sentence and Niemi was sentenced to one year and two months. The court judgment stated that Nyman “produced weapons primarily for the purpose of using them in violence aimed at promoting his adopted ideology”. Around the world, authorities are grappling with how to tackle this growing threat; some countries, including the UK, are looking at making it illegal to access or download blueprints, while others continue to rely on existing firearms laws and intelligence. “Law enforcement take 3D-printed guns very seriously, but the political system we’re in is reactive,” Basra says. “If there’s a completed attack, where someone is killed, the threat will seem much more urgent and will receive more resources and attention. It’s pretty sad that we’d have to wait for that point.” In Finland, Kuure remains concerned about what might come next. “This technology makes guns available to everyone. If you have a few hundred euros, some spare time and craftiness, then you have a gun.”Black Friday may be officially over but the tablet deals are still ticking along. So I've flagged a whole clutch of them, and these might just be... the best tablet deals... in the world. How would I know? Well I've been covering Black Friday deals for more years than I care to remember; I'm also an enthusiastic tablet user, so you trust me that I'll flag deals to you not duds. • See all of today's deals Furthermore, a lot of the tablet featured below can be found on our best tablets guide, so they are great at full price and now even better with a neat discount. So let's get cracking; read on for the best tablet deals in the US and UK. I've been covering tablets for years, having spent more than a decade in technology journalism. Plus as the editorial manager of the Mobile Computing and Deals verticals at TechRadar, I'm not short of knowledge in what's a good device and what's a good deal, ready to recommend the best products and bargains to you, dear reader. Today's best tablet deals in the US Amazon : save $100 on the 11-inch iPad Air 2024 Best Buy : save on iPads and Android tablets Best Buy : save $400 on the 11-inch iPad Pro Samsung: Save $200 plus on the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra Target : save on the Galaxy Tab A9 Plus & Apple iPads Target : save $100 on the iPad 9th Generation Walmart : save on loads of iPads There’s a massive up to $1,000 to be saved on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra when you combine an upfront $200 discount and up to $800 trade-in rebate for your existing tablet. The newest high-end Samsung slate has great features for productivity like Circle to Search with Google and Note Assist. There are also AI-assisted tools like the ability to turn a sketch into a full image. Up to 16 hours of battery life and a neat S Pen stylus prove useful. Up to $300 off one of Samsung's best budget tablets is a superb deal. The 10.9-inch display is ideal for portability and with incredibly long battery life the Tab S9 FE will keep going all day, even when pushed to its limits. There's 128GB of storage, which provides enough room to store all your apps, although you can upgrade to 256 GB if you need extra space. We've seen Samsung offer a $100 upfront discount on this device before but today's trade-in rebate of up to $400 is a record-low. With $70 off the original price, the OnePlus Pad 2 is a bit of a bargain for a rather powerful and capable Android tablet. For the price, you get a 12.1-inch display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and 67W fast charging; not bad for a tablet now under $500. Best Buy has discounted the 256GB iPad 10.2 (2021) – also known as the iPad 9th-generation. Despite its age, this iPad offers a gorgeous 10.2-inch screen with True Tone technology, decent battery life (we got around 10 hours in our testing), and it'll also continue to be supported with software updates until at least 2027. Put simply, the iPad 10.2 (2021) is the best iPad if you're on a budget. Apple's previous-gen iPad mini is a fantastic all-rounder. Its powerful A15 Bionic chip delivers all the performance most people need, while the 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display is small enough to make the device beautifully portable. The mini's display has True Tone support, P3 wide color, and ultra-low reflectivity, so it looks great wherever you're using it. Walmart's $110 discount is impressive, though we have seen this iPad as low as $349.99 at Amazon previously. Amazon's Black Friday sale has knocked a welcome $50 off the price of the brand-new, M4-powered iPad mini. You'll have to choose the Space Gray model for the maximum saving, though smaller discounts are also available on the other color variants. In our Apple iPad mini A17 Pro (2024) review , we praised the new tablet's "pocket-friendly design" and "ability to support Apple Intelligence." Apple slashed the recommended starting price of the iPad 10.9 (2022) to $349 earlier this year, but Amazon has now dropped that figure even further, to a record-low $259. In our iPad 10.9 (2022) review , we said Apple's latest base-level tablet is a big upgrade over the previous generation model, offering a larger Liquid Retina display, a new A14 Bionic chip, improved cameras, USB-C support, and a sleek design. Getting $100 off a tablet that could double as a laptop is not bad at all. This iPad Pro features a high-resolution Liquid Retina XDR display, strong battery life, and 256GB of storage. These specs are impressive already but when paired with the latest M4 chip you get a tablet that is truly special indeed. The power makes it possible to effortlessly perform even the most demanding of tasks, including photo and video editing as well as gaming. If the Amazon deal above is sold out or over, then Walmart's $924 deal on the new iPad Pro is still worth a look. In our iPad Pro (2024) review (albeit for the 13-inch model), we describe Apple's latest flagship tablet as "the impossibly thin king of iPads – and maybe all tablets." Naturally, that level of quality comes at a premium, but Black Friday season is a great time to snag a discount. If you want the biggest and best iPad, Amazon has the iPad Pro 13-inch (2024) on sale right now. It's a mighty tablet and one that's all the more attractive with $200 off its price tag. For just over $1,000 you get the mighty M4 chip, a large Liquid Retina XDR display, and 256GB of onboard storage, though if you need more then the 512GB iPad Pro also has $200 off at Amazon . You can save a cool $100 on the latest 256GB iPad Air over at Amazon. Nearly $600 isn't cheap for an iPad but it does next you a beautiful Liquid Retina display, a MacBook-level M2 chipset, a landscape-oriented front-facing camera, and landscape stereo speakers with spatial audio. If you want extra screen space, you can go for the iPad Air 13-inch (M2) instead. As well as being available at its lowest price yet, it has the same processing power as the 11-inch model. All the nice extras and useful features are included, too, as well as that larger display. If you need more of a laptop replacement, this is the right size for you. Add on a Magic Keyboard for the most convenience. To compliment an 11-inch iPad Pro or iPad Air, Apple's Magic Keyboard offers a smart combination of keyboard, trackpad, and tilting stand to transform an iPad into a pseudo computer. It's an essential accessory for people who want to be productive on Apple's tablets, and with $59 off it's more appealing than ever. Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite is always a best seller at holiday sales, and today's Black Friday deal brings the price down to a new record low. The waterproof e-reader features a large 7-inch glare-free display, a battery that lasts for weeks, and a single charge that lasts up to 12 weeks. Kindle ereaders are always popular deals during Black Friday, and I predict this discount on Amazon's all-new model will go fast. Amazon's latest Kindle was just released this month, and you can find a first-time discount, which brings the price down to $89.99. The 2024 Kindle is Amazon's lightest and most compact e-reader and features a six-inch glare-free display and a battery life that lasts six weeks. Today's best tablet deals in the UK Amazon : save more than £70 on the OnePlus Pad Amazon : 10% or more off a range of iPads Argos : last-gen iPad mini for £449 Argos : grab some more early tablet deals Currys : big deals on Samsung Galaxy tablets Currys : save £30 on the 13-inch iPad Air John Lewis : up to £430 off the 2022 iPad Pro range Samsung: save 5% on app purchases over £400 with this Samsung Black Friday voucher code Very: 10% off electricals when using this Very voucher code Box: exclusive £20 Off when you spend £400 or more by entering this BOX UK promo code Not the cheapest we've seen this older iPad drop to but Laptops Direct has discounted the iPad 10.2 (2021) – also known as the iPad 9th-generation – to £239, a reasonable price for a tablet with a gorgeous 10.2-inch screen with True Tone technology, decent battery life (we got around 10 hours in our testing), and slick software. In simple terms, the iPad 10.2 (2021) is the best iPad if you're on a budget. Over on Amazon, you can get a 256GB 2022 iPad for £429. Now that's not a huge discount, but it's a saving that's enough to load the iPad with some premium apps and games. As you'll see in our our iPad 10.9 (2022) review , it's an Apple tablet well worth your attention. Apple slashed the recommended starting price of the iPad 10.9 (2022) to £349 earlier this year, but John Lewis has cut that number even further to £289. FOr an entry-level iPad that a larger Liquid Retina display, a new A14 Bionic chip, improved cameras, USB-C support, and refreshed design, that's a good price. Amazon's Black Friday sale has knocked a welcome £30 off the price of the brand-new, M4-powered iPad mini. This small-but-welcome saving applies to all color variants, and the 256GB model has been discounted, too. In our Apple iPad mini A17 Pro (2024) review , we praised the new tablet's "pocket-friendly design" and "ability to support Apple Intelligence." Even if you can find the previous-gen iPad mini on sale for cheaper than £469, we think this new model is the better, more future-proof buy. The new iPad Air is the closest thing you can get to an iPad Pro without having to pay upwards of £1,000, which is why we believe it's the best iPad for students in 2024. For almost half the price of Apple's professional-grade iPad, you'll get a beautiful Liquid Retina display, a MacBook-level M2 chipset, a landscape-oriented front-facing camera, and landscape stereo speakers with spatial audio. Granted, this Amazon deal isn't a great one, but £559 is still the best price you'll find for the new iPad Air (well, it's technically tied with Very and John Lewis ). In our iPad Pro (2024) review (albeit for the 13-inch model), we describe Apple's latest flagship tablet as "the impossibly thin king of iPads – and maybe all tablets." Naturally, that level of quality comes at a premium, but EE has seen fit to discount the 256GB, Wi-Fi-only variant of the 11-inch iPad Pro (2024) to a slightly more digestible price ahead of Black Friday. Not even Amazon is offering this price right now. If you want the biggest and best iPad, both Amazon and John Lewis have the iPad Pro 13-inch (2024) on sale right now. It's a mighty tablet and one that's all the more attractive with a chunk of change off its price tag (even if this isn't the greatest deal in the world). The Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus has been cut by £300 making it a bit of an Android tablet bargain. It features Samsung's most powerful tablet processor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, with AI capabilities incorporated into its system. The latest Vision Booster technology also supports a brilliant display that automatically adjusts brightness and contrast based on your environment. The basic Samsung Galaxy Tab A9 is down to an impressively low price at Currys for Black Friday – though I have seen it £15 cheaper in the past. This basic tablet has an entry-level processor, a small 8.6-inch screen and only 64GB of storage so expect slightly slower performance and struggles with games or multitasking, but it's still a great tablet for light mobile computing. Over on Argos, the Samsung Galaxy Tab A9 can also be had for £129, which is good if the Currys deal has sold out. It's the cheapest the Tab A9 has dropped at Argos, so do go and check it out. At under £500, the OnePlus Pad 2 is a bit of a bargain for a rather powerful and capable Android tablet. For the price, you get a 12.1-inch display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and 67W fast charging; not bad for a tablet now under $500. Here's a super-cheap Lenovo tablet deal in the Black Friday sales at Amazon. It's getting older now and the spec is lightweight but if you just need an affordable device for everyday jobs, watching videos and light use this will be up to the task. This Honor Pad 9 is an affordable and versatile 12.1-inch tablet that does it all. It'll serve you well as a device for watching videos and browsing the web, while also comfortably handling light work and admin tasks - especially with a handy Bluetooth keyboard included for free. Expect reasonable overall performance, an impressive 13-hour battery life, a smooth display and decent storage at 256GB. Overall, there isn't a better budget tablet deal out there right now. Amazon's all-new Kindle Paperwhite is on sale for the first time since launch this Black Friday. Previous versions have been reduced to under £100 in the past, but it's unlikely we'll ever see an offer like that again on this upgraded version. We found in our Kindle Paperwhite review that it's packed with features to suit all avid readers, including an improved 12-week battery life, a larger glare-free 7-inch screen, adjustable warm light and storage space for thousands of books. The newest version of the standard Kindle is now on sale for the first time ever as part of the Black Friday sale at Amazon. It's a basic ereader, but it still boasts a six-week battery life and space for thousands of books. Given it's £45 cheaper than the Paperwhite, this is clearly a better pick for the infrequent reader after a more budget-friendly option. It's still a solid option, though, with a 6-inch glare-free display, fast page turns and an adjustable front light to help you read in all environments.The New York Giants got pounded at home in their first game since quarterback Daniel Jones was released as they lost embarrassingly to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 40-7. Tommy DeVito got the start at quarterback and did not provide any spark, as he completed 21 of 31 pass attempts for 189 yards and no touchdowns. Malik Nabers was not happy following the Giants’ Week 12 loss Rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers expressed real frustration following the loss, saying that the problems with the team are beyond the quarterback. “It ain’t the QB,” Nabers said via The Athletic’s Charlotte Carroll . “Same outcome when we had DJ at QB.” Nabers joins other Giants’ teammates who expressed displeasure with the organization’s decision to bench and release Jones. Nose tackle Dexter Lawrence said this week that Jones is “the best quarterback on the team” and another unnamed player called the decision “weak as f—.” Nabers finished the game with six receptions on nine targets for 64 yards. He didn’t get a single target in the first quarter and has seen his overall production decline since returning from a concussion in Week 7. Nabers sounded off on the lack of targets as well following the game. “I started getting the ball when it’s 30-0,” Nabers said (h/t SNY’s Connor J. Hughes ). “What do you want me to do?” The Giants’ frustrations have reached a boiling point The Giants’ disastrous season is only continuing to spiral. They are now 2-9 on the season and average a league-worst 14.8 points per game. Additionally, the locker room is disjointed following the decision to release Jones, with Nabers’ frustration being the best example of that. Head coach Brian Daboll is likely coaching for his job the rest of the way, but it is unclear how he will be able to regain the trust of his players. New York has now dropped six consecutive games as the frustration from a bad season has reached its boiling point. This article first appeared on Empire Sports Media and was syndicated with permission.
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A late-game rally derailed by a missed extra point and Cowboys stun Commanders 34-26Iowa turns to former walk-on QB to start against Maryland(The Center Square) – Eleven states, led by Texas, have sued the three largest institutional investors in the world for allegedly conspiring to buy coal company stocks to control the market, reduce competition and violate federal and state antitrust laws. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Tyler Division and demands a trial by jury. It names as defendants BlackRock, Inc., State Street Corporation, and Vanguard Group, Inc., which combined manage more than $26 trillion in assets. The companies were sued for “acquiring substantial stockholdings in every significant publicly held coal producer in the United States” in order to gain “power to control the policies of the coal companies,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said. According to the 109-page brief , defendants own 30.43% of Peabody Energy, 34.19% of Arch Resources, 10.85% of NACCO Industries, 28.97% of CONSOL Energy, 29.7% of Alpha Metallurgical Resources, 24.94% of Vistra Energy, 8.3% of Hallador Energy, 31.62% of Warrior Met Coal and 32.87% of Black Hills Corporation. Under the Biden administration, in the past four years, “America’s coal producers have been responding not to the price signals of the free market, but to the commands of Larry Fink, BlackRock’s chairman and CEO, and his fellow asset managers,” the brief states. “As demand for the electricity Americans need to heat their homes and power their businesses has gone up, the supply of the coal used to generate that electricity has been artificially depressed – and the price has skyrocketed. Defendants have reaped the rewards of higher returns, higher fees, and higher profits, while American consumers have paid the price in higher utility bills and higher costs.” Consumer costs went up because the companies “weaponized” their shares to push through a so-called green energy agenda, including reducing coal output by more than half by 2030, the lawsuit alleges. In response, publicly traded coal producers reduced output and energy prices skyrocketed. The companies advanced their policies primarily through two programs, the Climate Action 100 and Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, signaling “their mutual intent to reduce the output of thermal coal, which predictably increased the cost of electricity for Americans” nationwide, Paxton said. The firms also allegedly deceived thousands of investors “who elected to invest in non-ESG funds to maximize their profits,” Paxton said. “Yet these funds pursued ESG strategies notwithstanding the defendants’ representations to the contrary.” While they allegedly directly restrained competition among the companies whose shares they acquired, “their war on competition has consequences for the entire industry,” the brief states. “Texas will not tolerate the illegal weaponization of the financial industry in service of a destructive, politicized ‘environmental’ agenda. BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street formed a cartel to rig the coal market, artificially reduce the energy supply, and raise prices,” Paxton said. “Their conspiracy has harmed American energy production and hurt consumers. This is a stunning violation of state and federal law.” The lawsuit alleges the companies’ actions violated the Clayton Act, which prohibits any acquisition of stock where “the effect of such acquisition may be substantially to lessen competition;” and the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, 15 U.S.C. § 1 in a conspiracy to restrain trade. It also alleges the companies violated state antitrust laws of Texas, Montana and West Virginia; Blackrock also allegedly violated the Texas Business and Commerce Code by committing “false, deceptive, or misleading acts.” It asks the court to rule that the companies violated the federal and state statutes, provide injunctive and equitable relief and prohibit them from engaging in such acts. It requests that civil fines be paid, including requiring Blackrock to pay $10,000 per violation. Joining Paxton in the lawsuit are the attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, West Virginia and Wyoming. The Buzbee Law Firm and Cooper & Kirk are serving as outside counsel. The companies have yet to issue a statement on the lawsuit. The lawsuit follows one filed by 25 states led by Texas against the Biden administration asking the court to halt a federal ESG policy that could negatively impact the retirement savings of 152 million Americans. It also comes after Texas has listed hundreds of companies and publicly traded investment funds, including Blackrock, on its divestment list for advancing ESG and anti-oil and natural gas policies.