Sonia Mishra Charts out Enterprise Risk Assessment while Integrating Multifaceted Security Metrics to Stay Ahead of Emerging Threats
She served as an International Advisory Member and delivered a keynote speech at the conference
Dems threatening government shutdown over Elon Musk hate, Republicans say
House Republicans are accusing Democrats of waging their opposition campaign against the GOP’s government funding plan over their fury at Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts. “They hate Elon Musk and Donald Trump more than they love their country,” Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital. “They’re just losing their f—— minds.” Mace was still optimistic that some Democratic lawmakers will vote for the legislation on Tuesday afternoon, “I mean, they voted for every CR under the sun when [former President Joe Biden] was president. That’s what this is — it’s just political games.” First-term Rep. Jeff Crank, R-Colo., told Fox News Digital, “It’s either [President Donald Trump] or Elon Musk or a combination thereof, right?” DEMOCRATS PRIVATELY REBUKE PARTY MEMBERS WHO JEERED TRUMP DURING SPEECH TO CONGRESS: REPORT “They’ve had nothing but political losses from November forward. Last week was the worst political loss I think they’ve suffered in a long time,” Crank said, referring to Democrats’ intra-party divisions over some lawmakers’ disruptions during Trump’s speech to Congress. “I guess they’ve got to keep fighting, but what they should do is the right thing: Keep the government open.” Musk and his DOGE work have been met with near-universal condemnation by Democrats, even those who have agreed with the need to cut the federal bureaucracy. Democrats have held Musk up as a political boogeyman, an unelected billionaire who was given too much access to the federal government that he also profits from as a military contractor. But Republicans, with some exceptions, have defended his work as necessary. Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., told Fox News Digital that Musk is “doing damage to our government” but denied his work being a factor in his likely decision to oppose the funding bill. “Musk doesn’t live rent-free in my head,” Crow said. “I’m not making legislative decisions based upon Elon Musk and what he does and doesn’t do in any given day… I’m focusing on my constituents.” GOLDMAN SACHS HIGHLIGHTS TARIFF WARS WINNERS AND LOSERS Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., when asked about Musk, did not mention the billionaire at all. Instead, he pivoted to criticize House Republicans for putting a stopgap government funding bill known as a continuing resolution (CR) up for a vote, rather than dealing with a fresh slate of fiscal year (FY) 2025 appropriations bills. “Republicans have said for the longest time, right, that CRs are no longer the way to fund the government. Speaker Johnson promised to do individual spending bills. That was his pitch to his colleagues in order to remain speaker. OK. He’s the one who’s going back on his word to his own colleagues,” Moskowitz said. But Democrats have nevertheless used Musk in their public broadsides against the bill. “It takes away veterans’ healthcare. It takes away critical research funding. Those are the things that House Republicans are willing to do just to give Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s friends continued tax breaks. That’s unacceptable to House Democrats,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., told reporters on Monday. Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., wrote on X, “Trump and Musk are illegally shutting down federal agencies, mass firing federal workers, and freezing congressionally mandated funding. It’s causing massive job losses and economic chaos for my constituents, and the Republican CR would continue this disaster. I will vote no.” The proposed CR roughly freezes government funding at FY 2024 levels through the beginning of FY 2026, on Oct 1. It includes extra funding for defense while cutting nondefense funding by roughly $13 billion. House GOP leadership aides said over the weekend that the bill includes some added funding for veterans’ healthcare — putting them at odds with Democrats’ messaging. Democratic lawmakers normally vote in droves to avert a government shutdown, but this time it’s likely House Republicans will need to share the burden largely on their own. As of Monday night, several Republicans are still undecided on how they will vote, despite Trump making calls to GOP lawmakers who are on the fence.
‘Pro-criminal’: Blue state sheriff unloads on ‘disgusting’ bill targeting the right to self-defense
A California sheriff is speaking out against a bill in the Democrat-controlled capital of Sacramento that he says would essentially make self-defense illegal and believes is emblematic of liberal policies putting people in danger in the state. After Assembly Bill 1333 was introduced in California two weeks ago, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco gained traction on social media with a post reacting to the bill which he says will essentially make self-defense illegal in the state. Los Angeles Assembly member Rick Zbur introduced the bill, which he says aims to narrow the criteria for justifiable homicide, but Bianco told Fox News Digital that the bill will just further embolden criminals. “This Assembly member that has come up with this, If it was his idea, he certainly has absolutely no business being an assembly member representing people,” Bianco said. “And what my knowledge is of how things happen in Sacramento. I’m not giving him an out because he certainly had some talking points for this bill, but these are bills written by special interest groups and the majority of the special interest in Sacramento are pro-criminal.” TRUMP SUPPORTING CALIFORNIA SHERIFF LAUNCHES REPUBLICAN RUN FOR GOVERNOR IN RACE TO SUCCEED NEWSOM Bianco continued, “They want criminals to thrive. It’s just bizarre to me. How you could even have the thought process that says people should not be able to protect themselves is beyond me. Honestly, I don’t understand it. And I’ve never heard a sane, legitimate argument otherwise.” Bianco told Fox News Digital that the bill will make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to protect themselves from violent criminals. “This is basically saying if someone approaches you and is going to rob you or steal your stuff or harm you, your only option is to run, and they get whatever they want,” Bianco said. “If they’re there to steal your car and or your purse or your wallet or to harm your wife or your kids, your only option is to run away from them. They get to do whatever it is they want, and you just have to run away. And this is like the absolute ultimate display of zero consequence for criminal behavior.” Bianco, who is running for governor of California, told Fox News Digital that he is on the ground talking to Californians every day, and he is yet to run into someone who supports this bill. CA MAYOR DECLARES ‘HOMELESSNESS CAN’T BE A CHOICE,’ SUGGESTS ARRESTING THOSE WHO REPEATEDLY REFUSE SHELTER “There is no one,” Bianco said. There is no one other than the Democrats in Sacramento who think this is a good idea and then the beautiful part of this is based on what I did, a viral video calling it out, calling him out and making people call and demand better, and then other people doing the same thing. We exposed it. So this bill, there’s no way this bill is ever going to pass.” Fox News Digital reached out to Zbur for comment. It is unclear when the bill will be heard on the floor and Zbur has said that he plans to revise the bill to make it more clear. “What this bill is focused on is someone who goes out in public, picks a fight, and when the victim responds, they shoot them and claim self-defense,” Zbur said about the bill, Cal Matters reported. “Hopefully they remove it from the floor like they should, but this is going to happen to every single bill. They need to be put on notice that the light is going to be shined very bright in that dark little pit they call the Assembly floor, in the Senate floor, on these bills that are harming Californians,” Bianco told Fox News Digital. “And I’m going to be holding the flashlight and there is no sane person that thinks this is a good idea.” “There’s no dad that believes that he shouldn’t be able to protect his daughter or his wife. There’s no woman that believes that she should not be able to defend herself against an attacker and for these people in Sacramento, these lawmakers to come up with these types of bills. It’s truly disgusting that they would even think this is okay.”
Jharkhand: Who was Aman Sahu? Know about notorious gangster killed in police encounter
Aman Sahu gang allegedly ambushed the police convoy near Andhari Dhoda in the Chainpur police station area in Jharkhand, using a bomb. Details here…
Texas lawmakers considering bill to ban gender changes on birth certificates
Lawmakers in the Texas legislature are considering a bill that would prohibit people in the state from changing the gender marker on their birth certificate to reflect their gender identity. The measure, Senate Bill 406, is now being debated in the Texas Senate. Last year, the Texas Department of Public Safety stopped changing gender on driver’s licenses unless courts intervened, according to FOX 4. The Senate bill would block changes to gender on birth certificates, regardless of whether there is a court order. TEXAS LAWMAKER PROPOSES BILL TO BAN GENDER TRANSITION TREATMENT FOR EVERYONE, INCLUDING ADULTS “This bill is not about restricting anyone’s personal expression. It is about ensuring legal documents reflect accurate statistics,” GOP state Sen. Mayes Middleton, who sponsored the bill, said Monday in a State Affairs Committee hearing. “Right now, the only way to change sex is by court order, and this bill prevents that.” Testifying before the committee, Megan Benton of the group Texas Values said this is “a matter of public safety and public record.” “If a man can legally change his birth certificate to say he is a woman, then it’s possible to get a driver’s license, passport, and social security card that also says he is female,” she said. Several transgender Texans also testified before the committee, saying they believe they are being unfairly targeted. “I’m not a monster. This is not a fetish for me, and I did not decide to be a woman,” Amanda McLaughlin said. Megan Fairbanks asked, “What harm have I caused society?” “I don’t play sports. The only thing I want to do in the bathroom is use the bathroom and touch up my makeup and wash my hands,” Fairbanks said. The Transgender Education Network of Texas’ policy coordinator, Landon Richie, argued that the bill would lead to isolation and incentivize others to discriminate or put targets on the backs of transgender people who he said are already vulnerable. DYLAN MULVANEY REACTS TO GAVIN NEWSOM’S REMARKS ON TRANS ATHLETES PARTICIPATING IN WOMEN’S SPORTS The bill is expected to pass through the Senate and be sent to the House. This comes after state lawmakers passed legislation banning biological men from competing in girls’ school sports. At the federal level, President Donald Trump signed an executive order recognizing male and female as the only genders.
Donald Trump, facing terrible coverage, softens tone and tactics for Elon Musk’s DOGE crusade
Most people think of government workers as part of a faceless bureaucracy with cushy and clearly useless jobs. Now it’s true that the federal workforce is bloated and needs to be trimmed. But the politics of Elon Musk’s mass firings are shifting, prompting President Trump to soften his approach to the DOGE campaign. A major factor in this evolution is the negative media coverage, which Trump follows with great interest. It’s no accident that he said the other day the budget cutbacks should be done with a “scalpel” and not a “sledgehammer.” He’s acutely attuned to the growing backlash against the massive layoffs–which include 80,000 at Veterans Affairs. Many of the stories, on television and in print, follow a formula: Lead off with one person who has been booted or negatively impacted by the Musk bros. That puts a face to the story, an actual saddened person whose life has been upended. Consider this New York Times piece: “At the Veterans Affairs hospital in Pittsburgh, researchers spent months preparing for a clinical trial of a new drug to treat advanced cancers of the mouth, throat and voice box. LATEST TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER WILL SHIFT POWER OVER MANAGING NATURAL DISASTERS OUT OF DC “They were ready last month to start enrolling patients — veterans whose cancer had spread to other tissue and who had run out of treatment options. Then a problem arose. “The hospital was unable to renew the job of a key staff member involved in running the study, a typically routine process thwarted by a hiring freeze imposed under the government-cutting project led by President Trump and Elon Musk. Suddenly, the clinical trial was on hold. “‘They were ready to enroll,’ said Alanna Caffas, the chief executive of the Veterans Health Foundation, which administers the trials. ‘They had the lab kits on site. They had the drug to dispense. But they couldn’t get the clinical research coordinator renewed.’” Here’s a Washington Post report from Texas: “Jaylee Williams needed to find somewhere to deliver her son. The 19-year-old knew more about barrel racing on her horse Bet-n-pep than the complicated metrics of who takes what health insurance. But relief for Williams and her boyfriend, Xander Lopez, came when they realized Medina Regional Hospital — just 15 minutes from their home — accepted Medicaid, the federal-state program that covers medical costs for lower-income Americans. “Provider groups an hour away in San Antonio had refused to take the insurance, she recalled while cradling little Ryker. ‘You never know when something could happen,’ Williams said, with Lopez adding, ‘I have no idea where we would have gone’ without Medina Regional Hospital. But the lifeline that the 25-bed critical-access hospital offered to Williams and Lopez could disappear in Hondo and other communities like it.” That’s because rural hospitals are fearing “massive Medicaid cuts,” since they’re so dependent on the federal-state program. Trump says he will not allow cuts to Medicaid, as well as Medicare and Social Security, but that would be the only way Republicans could save a promised $80 billion. Some 72 million people are on Medicaid. In the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire says Trump’s shift on DOGE began on Feb. 19. “Jesse Watters, a co-host of the Fox News hit show ‘The Five’…told a surprisingly emotional story about a friend working at the Pentagon who was poised to lose his job as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce. ‘I finally found one person I knew who got DOGE’d, and it hit me in the heart,’ said Watters, who urged his Fox colleagues to ‘be a little bit less callous.’… “Trump watched the clip and asked advisers if it was resonating with his base of supporters, according to one of three White House officials I spoke with for this story.” Lemire adds that “over the ensuing weeks, the president grew unhappy with the television coverage of cuts affecting his voters, according to two of those officials, while the White House fielded calls from Cabinet members and Republican lawmakers frustrated by Elon Musk.” MUSK VOWS TO TRACE HACKERS BEHIND ‘MASSIVE CYBERATTACK’ CRIPPLING X SOCIAL MEDIA SITE Trump decreed that agency heads should make the layoffs and cutbacks, and Musk should step in only if they fail to take action. The move also may be aimed at the various lawsuits against Trump, since Musk is only supposed to be an adviser and not a government employee. Tensions have been rising behind the scenes (as well as publicly at town hall meetings, to the point that the GOP urged its members to stop holding the events). As the Times reports: “Marco Rubio was incensed. Here he was in the Cabinet Room of the White House, the Secretary of State, seated beside the president and listening to a litany of attacks from the richest man in the world. Seated diagonally opposite, across the elliptical mahogany table, Elon Musk was letting Mr. Rubio have it, accusing him of failing to slash his staff. You have fired ‘nobody,’ Mr. Musk told Mr. Rubio, then scornfully added that perhaps the only person he had fired was a staff member from Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Mr. Rubio had been privately furious with Mr. Musk for weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was supposedly under Mr. Rubio’s control: the United States Agency for International Development. But, in the extraordinary cabinet meeting on Thursday in front of President Trump and around 20 others — details of which have not been reported before — Mr. Rubio got his grievances off his chest. Mr. Musk was not being truthful, Mr. Rubio said. What about the more than 1,500 State Department officials who took early retirement in buyouts? Didn’t they count as layoffs? He asked, sarcastically, whether Mr. Musk wanted him to rehire all those people just so he could make a show of firing them again. Then he laid out his detailed plans for reorganizing the State Department. “Mr. Musk was unimpressed.
Delhi-NCR weather: Temperature rises as air quality slips to ‘poor’ category; rainfall likely on THESE days
On Tuesday (March 11), the maximum temperature in Delhi is expected to reach 34 degree Celsius while the minimum could drop to 17 degree Celsius. Relative humidity in the city is 14% and winds are blowing at a speed of 14 kilometers per hour.
PM Modi arrives in Mauritius for 2-day state visit, to attend National Day celebrations
PM Modi was welcomed by a total of 200 dignitaries at 6am (local time), which included MPs, MLAs, Diplomatic Corps and religious leaders
Why China isn’t as worried about Trump’s trade war as in 2018
Taipei, Taiwan – As United States President Donald Trump kicks off a new trade war with China, analysts say he will face a much stronger and more prepared adversary in Beijing compared with his first term in office. Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has already imposed a 20 percent tariff on Chinese imports, citing Beijing’s alleged failure to curb the export of the deadly opioid fentanyl to the US. The tariff comes on top of previous duties imposed by Trump and former US President Joe Biden on more than $400bn worth of Chinese goods. After condemning the latest US tariffs as “bullying” and “intimidation,” Beijing hit back last week by announcing tariffs of 10-15 percent on numerous US agricultural goods, including corn, beef, pork, dairy and soybeans. The tariffs, which went into effect on Monday, followed Beijing’s announcement last month of a 10 percent tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery, pick-up trucks, and some cars, and a 15 percent tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas. Advertisement “If war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jiang told reporters last week. While the tit-for-tat measures recall Trump’s first trade war in 2018, both Washington and Beijing are facing very different conditions today than seven years ago. The world’s two biggest economies have steadily decoupled in recent years, reducing their mutual dependency and blunting the impact of tariffs, according to analysts. Christopher Beddor, a deputy China research director at the Beijing-based Gavekal Dragonomics, said the latest tariffs should be “pretty manageable” for China, and noted that they are significantly below the 60 percent rate threatened by Trump during his election campaign. “I don’t want to understate the impact – that’s almost a tripling of the effective tariff rates for Chinese goods that are coming into the United States, so it’s big,” Beddor told Al Jazeera. “But Chinese exports into the United States are a pretty modest share of its overall economy,” Beddor said. Declining trade share China’s share of total US trade – measured as the sum of exports and imports – dropped from 15.7 percent to 10.9 percent between 2018 and 2024, according to Bloomberg. Over the same period, the US’s share of China’s total trade fell from 13.7 percent to 11.2 percent. Lynn Song, chief Economist for Greater China at ING, said Beijing is not likely to be panicking over the tariffs – at least for now. Advertisement “While avoiding this sort of trade friction would’ve been preferable, it’s something that’s been planned for, so I wouldn’t say there’s a feeling of panic,” Song told Al Jazeera. “With that said, with every tariff escalation, there inevitably will be parts of trade which become unviable and companies that will be impacted.” Another factor mitigating the impact of tariffs, Lynn said, is that Chinese exporters such as Shein and Temu have found success selling low-cost goods directly to customers by taking advantage of a tariff exemption on shipments worth less than $800. Beijing has continually rolled out measures to insulate the economy from any trade shocks. At the “Two Sessions” meetings last week in Beijing, the National People’s Congress – the highest body of state power in China – announced several fiscal stimulus measures, including raising the debt level for local governments and issuing 1.3 trillion yuan ($179bn) in long-term treasury bonds. Carsten Holz, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said Beijing’s domestic policy moves have given it a significant buffer against US demands. “Even the effect of a complete Trump ban on imports from China – hardly realistic in an age when, for example, the bulk of iPhones are produced in China – may not make a dent larger than a fraction of a percentage point in China’s GDP,” Holz told Al Jazeera. “For an authoritarian leadership determined to project strength, this is unlikely to be enough to join what may look to the Chinese public like ‘peace talks’ with a foreign aggressor.” Advertisement Some analysts believe that despite its stronger position compared with 2018, Beijing still wishes to negotiate with Trump – at least for the moment. ‘Avoiding escalation’ One of the strongest signals that Chinese officials are open to talking is that their opening round of tariffs was relatively mild and restricted to a limited number of goods, suggesting a strategy of “avoiding escalation,” said Even Rogers Pay, a food and agricultural analyst at the Beijing-based research group Trivium China. “The retaliation demonstrates that while China’s government doesn’t intend to take trade pressure lying down, they are also not going to be baited into an escalatory trade conflict where early overreaction could make striking a deal more difficult,” Pay told Al Jazeera. “Instead, by applying moderate tariffs to a short list of key industries, Beijing is ramping up political pressure in the red states that are major exporters of corn, soybeans, sorghum and other farm products that they hope will bring Trump to the table.” Beijing may be angling for a “phase two” deal along the lines of the “phase one” deal struck with Trump in 2020 to bring an end to the first trade war, Pay said. Under the phase one deal, China pledged to buy $200bn in US goods and services, including agricultural products, over two years. Beijing, however, only fulfilled about 58 percent of this amount after trade was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Peterson Institute for Economic Research. John Gong, a professor of economics at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, agreed that China can withstand the pressure but is also ready to negotiate. Advertisement “The government in China is, of course, worried, but won’t back down in a humiliating way. They would love to negotiate a deal, but if it can’t, they would have a ‘so-be it attitude’,” Gong told
A ‘dangerous’ moment: Advocates denounce arrest of activist Mahmoud Khalil
Free speech groups point out that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accused Khalil of leading “activities aligned with Hamas, a designated terrorist organization”. But analysts note that the department’s allegation falls short of more tangible claims. US law, for instance, prohibits anyone in the country’s jurisdiction from providing “material support” to terrorist organisations. The rationale provided for Khalil’s arrest, experts argue, was overly broad and could be wielded against any voices critical of Israel and US foreign policy. “It’s a loophole so big that you could drive a truck through it,” Will Creeley, the legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech group, told Al Jazeera. “I think what’s perhaps most dangerous about this moment is that, given the rhetoric coming out of the administration today, folks across the country are going to think twice before they criticise the government, whether it’s the US government or Israeli government, and that chill is a real problem,” he added. The effort to connect criticism of Israel with support for terrorism also appears to mirror Project 2025, a controversial series of policy proposals for Trump’s second term compiled by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. The document drew alarm for its expansive interpretations of executive power, as well as its views on issues like the pro-Palestinian protest movement. One Project 2025 proposal states that pro-Palestine protests are part of a “highly organized, global Hamas Support Network (HSN) and therefore effectively a terrorist support network”. Greer has told media outlets that, when she spoke with ICE agents over the phone, they appeared to have incorrect information about Khalil’s immigration status, informing her they were going to revoke his student visa. Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia until December, was previously in the US on a student visa but has since obtained a green card, making him a lawful permanent resident of the country. Greer said that, when she informed ICE agents that he was a permanent resident, they said his green card would be revoked instead. Student negotiator Mahmoud Khalil speaks to media on the Columbia University campus on April 29, 2024 [Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo] Nithya Nathan-Pineau, a policy lawyer with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, told Al Jazeera that green card status can be revoked under some circumstances, such as the discovery of fraudulent information in an immigration application or certain criminal activity. “I haven’t seen any information about criminal convictions or arrests,” she said. “It sounds like the ICE agents just unilaterally decided that whatever immigration status he had, it didn’t matter.” Greer said that she and Khalil’s wife were told he was being held in an immigration detention facility in New Jersey, but when they arrived, he was not there. Khalil has reportedly been moved to a detention centre in Louisiana. “This is a tactic that ICE loves to use, transferring someone to a facility that is further away from their legal assistance, community and loved ones,” said Nathan-Pineau. “It increases the psychological strain of detention.” Greer has challenged Khalil’s detention, and a federal court is scheduled to hear the case on March 12. Adblock test (Why?)