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This $40 Million Caribbean Estate Is Like Your Own Private Resort

This $40 Million Caribbean Estate Is Like Your Own Private Resort

Yahoo6 days ago
Your next vacation home could well be in 'America's Paradise.' A quaint hilltop estate in the U.S. Virgin Islands has just hit the market for $40 million.
Perched atop two hillside acres on the island of St. John, the aptly named Le Paradis (or 'Paradise' in English) is surrounded by protected parklands that provide residents with an unmatched level of privacy. Tucked away in the private enclave Estate Catherineberg, the palatial mansion offers striking panoramas of St. John's north shore. Corby Parfitt and Eric Bauman of U.S. Virgin Islands Sotheby's International Realty hold the listing.
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Le Paradis dates back to 1981, but was recently treated to a meticulous, multi-year renovation, according to press materials. World-renowned architects Tony Ingrao and Mario Nievera teamed up with Kevin Qualls of local firm Springline Architects to rebuild and expand the home. The sprawling pad offers some 16,450 square feet of living space and no less than eight bedrooms, nine bathrooms, and three half baths.
Through the gated entry, a winding palm tree-lined pathway leads to the central courtyard and the main home. The great room showcases soaring cathedral ceilings with exposed beams, sleek hardwood floors, and large windows that allow light to filter into the nearby lounge and dining area. The interior decor spotlights materials from all around the world. The kitchen, for example, features custom St. Charles Sycamore cabinetry, locally quarried stone, imported Italian marble, and fixtures from THG and Gessi.
The clever indoor-outdoor design of Le Paradis means that there are places to relax both inside and out. The rear deck affords gob-smacking vistas out over the infinity pool and spa, while the scenic covered terrace features an alfresco lounge and dining area. Back inside lies a state-of-the-art home theater with coastal views, two large executive offices, and a private wellness center with a fitness suite, spa, and meditation spaces.
As for accommodation, the home offers a lavish primary suite with a private balcony plus six guest suites with spa-like en suites and custom built-ins. The property also includes dedicated staff accommodations. To top it off, Le Paradis is one of the only residences on St. John to feature a private elevator.
RELATED: What It's Really Like to Buy a Private Island
Those sweet on Saint Thomas might also be interested in a nine-acre spread that recently came to market. Comprised of four homes and a private waterfall, the $30 million estate would also make a great addition to your portfolio. We'll let you decide between the two.Best of Robb Report
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UN report lists companies complicit in Israel's ‘genocide': Who are they?
UN report lists companies complicit in Israel's ‘genocide': Who are they?

Yahoo

time5 hours ago

  • Yahoo

UN report lists companies complicit in Israel's ‘genocide': Who are they?

The United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has released a new report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza, in breach of international law. Francesca Albanese's latest report, which is scheduled to be presented at a news conference in Geneva on Thursday, names 48 corporate actors, including United States tech giants Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. – Google's parent company – and Amazon. A database of more than 1000 corporate entities was also put together as part of the investigation. '[Israel's] forever-occupation has become the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and Big Tech – providing significant supply and demand, little oversight, and zero accountability – while investors and private and public institutions profit freely,' the report said. 'Companies are no longer merely implicated in occupation – they may be embedded in an economy of genocide,' it said, in a reference to Israel's ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip. In an expert opinion last year, Albanese said there were 'reasonable grounds' to believe Israel was committing genocide in the besieged Palestinian enclave. The report stated that its findings illustrate 'why Israel's genocide continues'. 'Because it is lucrative for many,' it procurement of F-35 fighter jets is part of the world's largest arms procurement programme, relying on at least 1,600 companies across eight nations. It is led by US-based Lockheed Martin, but F-35 components are constructed globally. Italian manufacturer Leonardo S.p.A is listed as a main contributor in the military sector, while Japan's FANUC Corporation provides robotic machinery for weapons production lines. The tech sector, meanwhile, has enabled the collection, storage and governmental use of biometric data on Palestinians, 'supporting Israel's discriminatory permit regime', the report said. Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon grant Israel 'virtually government-wide access to their cloud and AI technologies', enhancing its data processing and surveillance capacities. The US tech company IBM has also been responsible for training military and intelligence personnel, as well as managing the central database of Israel's Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA) that stores the biometric data of Palestinians, the report said. It found US software platform Palantir Technologies expanded its support to the Israeli military since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023. The report said there were 'reasonable grounds' to believe the company provided automatic predictive policing technology used for automated decision-making in the battlefield, to process data and generate lists of targets including through artificial intelligence systems like 'Lavender', 'Gospel' and 'Where's Daddy?' The report also lists several companies developing civilian technologies that serve as 'dual-use tools' for Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. These include Caterpillar, Leonardo-owned Rada Electronic Industries, South Korea's HD Hyundai and Sweden's Volvo Group, which provide heavy machinery for home demolitions and the development of illegal settlements in the West Bank. Rental platforms Booking and Airbnb also aid illegal settlements by listing properties and hotel rooms in Israeli-occupied territory. The report named the US's Drummond Company and Switzerland's Glencore as the primary suppliers of coal for electricity to Israel, originating primarily from Colombia. In the agriculture sector, Chinese Bright Dairy & Food is a majority owner of Tnuva, Israel's largest food conglomerate, which benefits from land seized from Palestinians in Israel's illegal outposts. Netafim, a company providing drip irrigation technology that is 80-percent owned by Mexico's Orbia Advance Corporation, provides infrastructure to exploit water resources in the occupied West Bank. Treasury bonds have also played a critical role in funding the ongoing war on Gaza, according to the report, with some of the world's largest banks, including France's BNP Paribas and the UK's Barclays, listed as having stepped in to allow Israel to contain the interest rate premium despite a credit report identified US multinational investment companies BlackRock and Vanguard as the main investors behind several listed companies. BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, is listed as the second largest institutional investor in Palantir (8.6 percent), Microsoft (7.8 percent), Amazon (6.6 percent), Alphabet (6.6 percent) and IBM (8.6 per cent), and the third largest in Lockheed Martin (7.2 percent) and Caterpillar (7.5 percent). Vanguard, the world's second-largest asset manager, is the largest institutional investor in Caterpillar (9.8 percent), Chevron (8.9 percent) and Palantir (9.1 percent), and the second largest in Lockheed Martin (9.2 percent) and Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems (2 percent). The report states that 'colonial endeavours and their associated genocides have historically been driven and enabled by the corporate sector.' Israel's expansion on Palestinian land is one example of 'colonial racial capitalism', where corporate entities profit from an illegal occupation. Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, 'entities that previously enabled and profited from Palestinian elimination and erasure within the economy of occupation, instead of disengaging are now involved in the economy of genocide,' the report said. For foreign arms companies, the war has been a lucrative venture. Israel's military spending from 2023 to 2024 surged 65 percent, amounting to $46.5bn – one of the highest per capita worldwide. Several entities listed on the exchange market – particularly in the arms, tech and infrastructure sectors – have seen their profits rise since October 2023. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange also rose an unprecedented 179 percent, adding $157.9bn in market value. Global insurance companies, including Allianz and AXA, invested large sums in shares and bonds linked to Israel's occupation, the report said, partly as capital reserves but primarily to generate returns. Booking and Airbnb also continue to profit from rentals in Israeli-occupied land. Airbnb briefly delisted properties on illegal settlements in 2018 but later reverted to donating profits from such listings to humanitarian causes, a practice the report referred to as 'humanitarian-washing'. According to Albanese's report, yes. Corporate entities are under an obligation to avoid violating human rights through direct action or in their business partnerships. States have the primary responsibility to ensure that corporate entities respect human rights and must prevent, investigate and punish abuses by private actors. However, corporations must respect human rights even if the state where they operate does not. A company must therefore assess whether activities or relationships throughout its supply chain risk causing human rights violations or contributing to them, according to the report. The failure to act in line with international law may result in criminal liability. Individual executives can be held criminally liable, including before international courts. The report called on companies to divest from all activities linked to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, which is illegal under international law. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion ruling that Israel's continued presence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem should come to an end 'as rapidly as possible'. In light of this advisory opinion, the UN General Assembly demanded that Israel bring to an end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory by September 2025. Albanese's report said the ICJ's ruling 'effectively qualifies the occupation as an act of aggression … Consequently, any dealings that support or sustain the occupation and its associated apparatus may amount to complicity in an international crime under the Rome Statute. 'States must not provide aid or assistance or enter into economic or trade dealings, and must take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that would assist in maintaining the illegal situation created by Israel in the oPt.'

Powell's $2.5B Fed revamp denial exposes his privileged arrogance
Powell's $2.5B Fed revamp denial exposes his privileged arrogance

New York Post

time5 hours ago

  • New York Post

Powell's $2.5B Fed revamp denial exposes his privileged arrogance

Is Jerome Powell a liar or a fool? The august chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Chair told the Senate Banking Committee last week, 'There's no VIP dining room, there's no new marble. There are no special elevators' in the $2.5 billion renovation work at the central bank's Washington headquarters. 'There are no new water features, there's no beehives, and there's no roof terrace gardens.' In short, he categorically denied The Post's reporting on the swanky 'Palace of Versailles' redo — but without any explanation of why the project's planning documents include all those features. Those plans haven't been revised since 2021, when the work began, with an estimated cost of $1.9 billion. How did the price soar more than 30% if so many luxury items got dropped? All the guy who literally controls America's money supply could offer up was: 'The cost overruns are what they are.' OK; the Fed chief may not have perjured himself; he may well not know what's going on around him. We're pretty sure he knows how to read a spreadsheet — if he can be bothered to look. Keep up with today's most important news Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters Powell's disdain for questions about the taxpayers having to shell out at least $2.5 billion for work on a single, four-story office building exposes him as an arrogant, privileged, bureaucrat who seems to think 'civil servant' means he's the one who gets served. Let them eat cake! The pricey makeover comes when the Fed is hemorrhaging money — a stunning $233 billion in losses in three years. That's thanks to high interest rates and the overhang from more than a decade of utterly unprecedented 'quantitative easing' intervention in the private economy, which has left the Fed with a huge balance sheet of junk 'assets' Powell keeps saying he's going to unload soon. Incidentally, The Wall Street Journal reports that the beehives (Italian beehives!) got added to the building's roof back in 2023. Maybe the chief never gets up there? At a time when the Fed's exercising entirely new powers, its chief can ill-afford to raise the question: If he doesn't know what happening on his roof, is he really on top of what's going on under it?

Evanston-Skokie D65 may close four schools; it must cut $10 to $15 million due to deficits
Evanston-Skokie D65 may close four schools; it must cut $10 to $15 million due to deficits

Chicago Tribune

time6 hours ago

  • Chicago Tribune

Evanston-Skokie D65 may close four schools; it must cut $10 to $15 million due to deficits

As Evanston-Skokie School District 65 continues making budget cuts after a financial consultant earlier this year said the district had a $10 million deficit, officials are looking at closing as many as four schools. Those closures do not include the previously-announced shuttering of the Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies. District officials said the district needs to cut about $10 to $15 million from its budget, and the administration is holding meetings telling the public about its criteria for weighing which schools to keep open. At three meetings the district held for parents and community members from June 23-25, officials said they are using the measures of equity, geography and building functionality to determine which schools should be closed. The district won't make a decision or present its idea on which schools to close before September, according to Assistant Superintendent of Academics Stacy Beardsley. Communications Manager Hannah Dillow said the district's goal is to limit school school closures to the start of the 2026-2027 school year beginning July 1, 2026. The next school year's budget, which began on July 1, 2025, is still in development, according to Dillow. 'Our Financial Services department is optimistic that the district performed better than budget for [Budget year 2025],' Dillow said, but exact numbers on the district's current deficit will not be available until the budget is approved. Beardsley hosted a community meeting at the Dr. Jorge and Luz Maria Prieto Community Center on June 25, responding to parents' concerns about what steps the district is taking to minimize the impact of any school closures on students. Beardsley said the district will need to keep making cuts to its budget in the next school year, even after slashing 73 jobs in the last school year. The criteria the district is following was developed by the Facilities Subcommittee, made up of 16 stakeholders with diverse backgrounds in education, architecture, engineering and civic leadership, per district documents. Equity The district will make efforts to avoid disproportionately impacting marginalized groups within the district, which consist of Black students, Latino students, students with IEP plans, English language learners and students on free and reduced lunch rates. 'The thing that the group [subcommittee] talked about was that we don't want to replicate what was the unintentional impact or the impact of the closing of the original Foster School,' Beardsley said. 'When the district closed the original Foster School, we ended up disproportionately bussing Black students throughout Evanston and removing the opportunity for them necessarily to have a neighborhood school,' she said. Geography The geography of a school is the highest weighted criterion to keep a school open, per district documents. Beardsley said the district will consider walkability for students to access their school, with a recommendation that students walk no more than three quarters of a mile to their school. This will also intentionally avoid raising transportation costs, Beardsley said. The safety of a student's walk to school will also be considered, she said, considering traffic and safety hazards identified by the Illinois Department of Transportation. Beardsley also said the district is considering a school's proximity to other schools, as some are considered 'community hubs.' Building Functionality The third-highest ranking criterion the subcommittee and district are considering is a school's current building functionality, given that the average District 65 school is 79 years old, has long overdue repairs, and may not be ADA accessible, Beardsley said. The subcommittee will also consider how the school uses its building, she said, primarily pointing out cases where some schools have their cafeteria and gym in the same room, which can limit schedules for P.E. and lunch. The number of classrooms will also be considered, she said. Financial impact The lowest-rated criteria the subcommittee is considering is the possible revenue a building sale can bring in to the district and the cost needed to repair an existing building, per district documents. Future public meetings to further discuss possible school closures will be scheduled between September and November, according to district documents. If the district goes forward to close a school, it would go into effect July 1, 2026.

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