Launching Damran Valley Water Project in Lahj
During the launch, the Director General of the District explained that the pumping unit of the Damran Valley Water Project in Al-Qabaita, which is powered by solar energy, serves approximately 4,500 people.
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New York Times
8 minutes ago
- New York Times
Veterans Affairs Dept. Scales Back Plans for Vast Job Cuts
The Department of Veterans Affairs has scaled back its effort to reduce its work force by more than 80,000 people, saying on Monday that it intended to cut nearly 30,000 jobs by the end of September instead. The department effectively abandoned its previous plan to fire tens of thousands of workers as part of President Trump's wide-reaching plan to slash the federal bureaucracy. The new target, outlined in a department news release, would slash a work force that numbered 484,000 earlier this year to about 455,000. Nearly 17,000 employees have already left. Instead of firing workers, the rest of the cuts would be made by offering early retirement or severance payments, along with what the department described as 'normal attrition' — the small percentage of employees who quit or move to other jobs every year. 'A departmentwide R.I.F. is off the table,' said Doug Collins, the veterans affairs secretary, referring to a reduction in force, the formal process to initiate mass layoffs in the agency. 'As a result of our efforts, V.A. is headed in the right direction — both in terms of staff levels and customer service,' he said. The department, which provides health care for military veterans, had previously insisted that job cuts would not affect services, and said again on Monday that it had 'multiple safeguards in place' to prevent disruptions. A law signed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had significantly expanded the veterans benefits system and set off a record-breaking hiring spree at the department. The department said on Monday that it had continued to cut a backlog of benefits claims after a spike during the Biden administration. In addition to its primary mission of providing care to veterans and serving as the nation's backup health care system, the department also oversees some medical research and manages veterans benefits programs — like pensions, banking, home loans, insurance, job training and funding for college degrees.
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Alpha males are rare among our fellow primates: scientists
New research on Monday contradicted the commonly held idea that males dominate females among primates, revealing far more nuanced power dynamics in the relationships of our close relatives. "For a long time we have had a completely binary view of this issue: we thought that a species was either dominated by males or females -- and that this was a fixed trait," Elise Huchard, a primatologist at the University of Montpellier in France, told AFP. "Recently, this idea has been challenged by studies showing that the truth is much more complicated," said the lead author of a new study published in the journal PNAS. The French-German team of researchers combed through scientific literature for interactions between male and female primates that revealed their hierarchical relationships. These included aggression, threats and signs of dominant or submissive behaviour, such as when one primate spontaneously moved out of the way of another. Over five years, the team gathered data from 253 populations across 121 primate species, including a range of monkeys, lemurs, tarsiers and lorises. They found that confrontations between members of the opposite sex were much more frequent than had been previously thought. On average, more than half of these interactions within a group involved a male and a female. Males clearly dominating females, which was defined as winning more than 90 percent of these confrontations, was only observed in 17 percent of the populations. Among this minority were baboons and chimpanzees, which are the closest living relatives to humans. Clear female domination was recorded in 13 percent of the primate populations, including lemurs and bonobos. This meant that for 70 percent of the primates, either males or females could be at the top of the pecking order. - Battle of the sexes - When male domination was particularly pronounced, it was usually in a species where males have a clear physical advantage, such as bigger bodies or teeth. It was also more common among ground-bound species, in which females are less able to run and hide compared to their relatives living in the trees. Females, meanwhile, tended to dominate over societies when they exerted control over reproduction. For example, the genitals of female baboons swell when they are ovulating. Males jealously guard females during these few days of their menstrual cycle, making sure that other competitors cannot mate with them. However in bonobos, this sexual swelling is less obvious. "Males never know when they are ovulating or not. As a result, (the female bonobos) can mate with whoever they want, whenever they want, much more easily," Huchard said. Female dominance is also more common when females compete with each other, and when males provide more care for the young. In these species, females are often solitary or only live in male-female pairs. This means that monogamy is closely linked to female dominance. Can these results be extrapolated to our own species? There are a great many differences between humans and our fellow primates, Huchard emphasised. But we would broadly fall into the middle category in which neither males nor females always have strict dominance over the other. "These results corroborate quite well with what we know about male-female relationships among hunter-gatherers, which were more egalitarian than in the agricultural societies that emerged later" in human history, Huchard said. ber/dl/giv
Courier-Mail
8 minutes ago
- Courier-Mail
Russian transport minister Roman Starovoit dies by ‘suicide' after being sacked
Don't miss out on the headlines from World. Followed categories will be added to My News. Russia's transport minister allegedly shot himself just hours after President Vladimir Putin dismissed him from his post. Roman Starovoit was abruptly fired on Monday after just a year in his key position, The New York Post reported. He was then found dead inside his car in Odintsovo, a neighbourhood just west of Moscow where Russia's elite reside. Mr Starovoit was found with a gun that was an official gift from the Kremlin, officials said. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on Mr Starovoit's dismissal, with no reason for his firing listed on the Kremlin's website. Officials also did not give a reason for his reported suicide. Russian transport minister Roman Starovoit was found dead in his car on Monday. Picture: Dmitry Astakhov/Sputnik/Government Pool Photo via AP Russian law enforcement agents carry the body of former Mr Starovoit. Picture: Evgeniy Razumniy/Kommersant Photo via AP Mr Starovoit was tapped as Russia's new transport minister in May 2024 after serving as the governor of the Kursk region, an area at the heart of an embezzlement case that allegedly aided Ukraine's surprise counter-invasion last year. The Kremlin has been investigating allegations that officials in Kursk embezzled state funds meant for fortifying the region around the time Ukraine was planning its major assault on Russian soil. The Kursk invasion was the first time in Russia's history that Moscow lost land to an invader since World War II, leaving Mr Putin humiliated and forcing the Russian army to scramble for months to reclaim the land. Mr Starovoit's successor in Kursk, Alexi Smirnov, was allegedly tied to the incident and arrested on embezzlement charges in April, with Russian media claiming that charges were pending for the transport minister. Russian President Vladimir Putin with Mr Starovoit in January. Picture: Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool Photo via AP While the Kremlin never made statements on whether Mr Starovoit was under investigation, a transport industry source told Reuters that the minister's position had come into question over the Kursk scandal. Mr Starovoit's dismissal also comes after a weekend of travel chaos plagued Russian airports, with more than 160 flights cancelled and another 240 delayed due to Ukraine's drone attacks. Russian commentators speaking about Mr Starovoit's sacking, however, said that the disruptions have become common due to the frequency of Ukraine's attacks, claiming the weekend chaos likely played no role in his dismissal. Following Mr Starovoit's firing – but before his death was reported – his deputy transport minister, Andrei Nikitin, was tapped as his replacement. 'At present, in the President's opinion, Andrei Nikitin's professional qualities and experience will best contribute to ensuring that this agency, which the President described as extremely important, fulfils its tasks and functions,' Mr Peskov said in a press conference that took place before Mr Starovoit's death became public. This article was originally published by The New York Post and was reproduced with permission Originally published as Russian transport minister Roman Starovoit dies by 'suicide' after being sacked
