Latest news with #Swain
Times
11 hours ago
- Sport
- Times
Six Wallabies who can cause British & Irish Lions issues
At last, the tour starts for real. The phoney war, with the Lions sounding entitled as if the Empire still existed, is over. Joe Schmidt's priority is to prepare to win a series, and if that means taking no risks with his elite, good for Joe. With Saturday's match against the Western Force coming three weeks before the first Test, the Australia head coach is keen to see some of his squad in action. So are we. Before the tour opener, let's consider six opponents the Lions are likely to face at some stage. Five members of the Wallabies squad have stayed with the Force before joining the Australia camp for next Sunday's Test against Fiji. The first pick comes from this quintet. The second row's stagnated career has reignited, with his lineout skills coming to the fore in Western Australia. The Force have developed a handy habit of stealing lineouts in Super Rugby, with Swain prominent. The Lions scrummaged superbly against Argentina but their lineout was poor, losing five of their own throws. Swain and his colleagues will target the touring side at this set piece. It's a challenge for the Lions but a great opportunity for individuals to — quite literally — jump into contention for the Test series. The Force finished ninth of 11 in Super Rugby but their lineout statistics were outstanding, with the Australian lock back to his best since moving west. It is a game everyone expects the Lions to win but the magnifying glasses will be well and truly aimed at the lineout, with Swain at the centre of the action. The 27 year old was a regular in the Wallabies midfield until an ankle injury eased Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii into rugby's global headlines. Hype or here to stay? Regardless, the Queensland Reds centre Paisami is far too good to be dismissed as a 'former international' at this stage of his career. He has the same hard-carrying aggressive style that Leicester Tigers' Izaia Perese brings to his game. Released by Schmidt to play against the Lions on Wednesday, he is out of contention for the Test match against Fiji four days later but he'll be looking to remind the Australia coach that the Wallabies have solid as well as sensational options in their back line. Another Queensland player looking to make a mark. The Fiji-born utility second row and back-row forward — named already as part of the First Nations and Pasifika squad who will face the Lions — has superb hands and is a powerful ball-carrier. There is something of the Leone Nakarawa to him when he is on form. Under Les Kiss (the man who will succeed Schmidt with Australia) the back-five operator has added breakdown basics to his broken-field brilliance. The Wallabies have a magnificent back row in Rob Valetini, Fraser McReight and Harry Wilson, but if he has shrugged off his injuries, Uru adds impact from the bench. The Brumbies wing is one of only two uncapped members of Schmidt's initial Australian squad. There are bigger wings than Toole, and there are faster ones as well, but few have the knack of finishing with such muscular determination. Toole is also an astute, angled runner coming off his wing. His understanding with the Brumbies and Wallabies full back, Tom Wright, could lead to him winning a first cap in the forthcoming series. He has a confident kicking game and a rugged defensive attitude. If his lack of international experience is a problem, his seasonal form and link play with the superb Wright — the most incisive performer in the Wallabies back line — must be a huge plus. If he misses out on selection for the Fiji match, he could very well be sent back to the Brumbies where he will have an opportunity to prove Schmidt wrong ten days before the first Test in Brisbane. The 34-year-old was fly half the last time the Lions played Australia, in 2013. A wonderful full back and wing with the most astonishing instinct for the game, he gravitated to No10 and seduced seasoned coaches like the New Zealander Robbie Dean, then in charge of Australia. Twelve years on and O'Connor, who has recently joined Leicester, has been dividing his fans and naysayers (he's not, never was, and never will be anything like as good a No10 as back-three player). The Australian media have again leapt on the idea that the veteran is the answer to the team's concerns at fly half. He has been playing — often from the bench — for the Super Rugby champions, the Crusaders. Schmidt let the hype build and then left him out of his 36-man squad. There is still, however, the Invitational Australia and New Zealand team who face the Lions a week before the first Test. O'Connor could yet provide a cameo. Richie Mo'unga, one of the world's best tens, could also feature. The New Zealander Mo'unga versus Finn Russell would be one for the fly half purists. In 80 minutes against England, I saw a one-man weapon capable of savaging the Lions with his exceptional footwork and extraordinary aerial game. How good, I wondered, would he be with a season of Super Rugby under his belt? Alas, a broken jaw in May has left him short of union know-how after his switch from league. He could be a wing, a centre, a whole new position . . . but he could also be woefully short of union experience. Playing against the Lions is tough enough; doing so with the weight of a sports-mad country on your back? He could do with 80 minutes of rugby before the series. Hopefully he'll get it against Fiji next Sunday. Lions fans will have to wait.
Hindustan Times
a day ago
- Hindustan Times
Cuttack court acquits Dhala Samanta brothers, eight others in 2013 double murder case
Bhubaneswar: Twelve years after the abduction and murder of two sharpshooters, a sessions court in Cuttack on Thursday acquitted the prime accused, history-sheeter siblings Dhala Samanta brothers, along with eight others, citing the prosecution's failure to provide sufficient evidence. The Dhala Samantas, nicknamed the D brothers, ran a major tender-fixing and extortion racket and were part of a large inter-state illicit arms trade network that supplied weapons to small-time criminals (Representative photo) Cuttack district and sessions judge Sitikantha Samal said that the brothers — Sushil Dhala Samanta and Sushanta Dhala Samanta — are acquitted in the abduction and murder case of sharpshooter Manoj Kumar Mallick alias Dipu and associate Ommprakash Swain, as the prosecution failed to prove the 'use' of the arms under Section 27 of the Arms Act or their 'sale, transfer, etc.' under Section 25 (1-AA) of the Arms Act. The gangster duo, however, were found guilty under Sections 25(1-A) (possession of prohibited arms or prohibited ammunition) and 25(1-B)(a) of the Arms Act. They were sentenced to seven years of rigorous imprisonment and fined ₹ 10,000 each, as they were found in possession of firearms such as carbines and .22 pistols. 'The case solely rested on circumstantial evidence, as there is no direct evidence, ocular or documentary, against the accused persons that they have committed the murder of the alleged deceased Dipu alias Manoj Kumar Mallick and Omm alias Omprakash Swain, except the alleged abduction on 12.11.2013, and the parents of Mallick had seen both of them for the last time on that day at 11 pm in Cuttack with the accused. The law on circumstantial evidence speaks that there must be a complete chain of evidence leading to the conclusion that the accused is the only person who could have committed the offence and no one else. The prosecution has failed to establish the necessary links so as to complete the chain of circumstances,' the trial court said in its order while acquitting the 10 accused. The Dhala Samantas, nicknamed the D brothers, ran a major tender-fixing and extortion racket and were part of a large inter-state illicit arms trade network that supplied weapons to small-time criminals. After Sushil was arrested in Bhubaneswar in 2009, Sushanta fled to Visakhapatnam, leaving the crime network under the supervision of Mallick and Swain. In the absence of the Dhala Samanta brothers, both Mallick and Swain gradually took over the reins, which angered the gangster siblings. After Sushil was released from jail on bail in 2012, the brothers took Mallick and Swain to their office in Cuttack and assaulted them. They were then taken to the farmhouse at Khuntakata, where they were strangled to death. Their bodies were allegedly disposed of by burning them under a culvert at Ghasipulia on the Gua-Kiribur Road in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand. Two years later, Mallick's father Adwaita and Swain's wife Mani filed complaint petitions in the court of the sub-divisional judicial magistrate (Sadar), Cuttack. The court then directed the police to register an FIR at the Chauliaganj police station in 2016. Mallick's father told the court that his family was afraid to report his son's disappearance to the local police, as the Dhala Samantas were 'professional criminals.' He alleged that although he reported the matter at the Chauliaganj police station on January 4, 2014, no FIR was registered. Even a visit to the criminal investigation department (CID) proved unsuccessful, as they demanded a copy of the FIR from the police station. The court observed that there was an 'unexplained and inordinate delay in filing the complaint petition' regarding the alleged abduction of Mallick and Swain. The two-year delay, coupled with the ample opportunities the complainants had to report the matter to the police or court, 'not only affected the genuineness of this case but also created doubt on the claim of evidence of families of the deceased.' The court also found significant doubts and inconsistencies in the evidence and procedures, such as the motive for the murder, confessional statements, spot identification, DNA sample collection, and the lack of a test identification parade to identify the six persons seen at the site of the alleged murder — all of which weakened the case.
Straits Times
a day ago
- Science
- Straits Times
The world is warming up - and it's happening faster
A report published last week found that human-caused global warming is now increasing by 0.27 degrees Celsius per decade. PHOTO: EPA-EFE NEW YORK - Summer started barely a week ago, and already the United States has been smothered in a record-breaking 'heat dome'. Alaska saw its first-ever heat advisory this month. And all of this comes on the heels of 2024, the hottest calendar year in recorded history. The world is getting hotter, faster. A report published last week found that human-caused global warming is now increasing by 0.27 degrees Celsius per decade. That rate was recorded at 0.2 degrees in the 1970s, and has been growing since. This doesn't surprise scientists who have been crunching the numbers. For years, measurements have followed predictions that the rate of warming in the atmosphere would speed up. But now, patterns that have been evident in charts and graphs are starting to become a bigger part of people's daily lives. 'Each additional fractional degree of warming brings about a relatively larger increase in atmospheric extremes, like extreme downpours and severe droughts and wildfires,' said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California. While this aligns with scientific predictions of how climate change can intensify such events, the increase in severity may feel sudden to people who experience them. 'Back when we had lesser levels of warming, that relationship was a little bit less dramatic,' Dr Swain said. 'There is growing evidence that the most extreme extremes probably will increase faster and to a greater extent than we used to think was the case,' he added. Take rainfall, for example. Generally, extreme rainfall is intensifying at a rate of 7 per cent with each degree Celsius of atmospheric warming. But recent studies indicate that so-called record-shattering events are increasing at double that rate, Dr Swain said. 'There is no weather that's happening outside of climate,' said Dr Kate Marvel, a climate scientist and author of the book 'Human Nature'. 'This is stuff that's manifesting in the real world,' she said, citing catastrophes such as Hurricane Helene that hit Florida in 2024. According to Dr Swain, scientists have yet to come to a universal understanding of these events, in part because the infrequent nature of outliers makes them difficult to study. And as warming has intensified, so have the impacts on vulnerable regions of the planet such as the Arctic and Antarctic, making previously rare or hidden consequences more apparent. Scientists are fine-tuning their models to understand the behaviour of the vast ice sheets in such places to match the rapid changes they're observing. In March 2025, a NASA analysis found that sea levels had risen faster than expected in 2024, in part because of a combination of melting glaciers and heat penetrating deeper into oceans, causing them to expand thermodynamically. Sea surface temperatures are rising faster than previously predicted, too, according to a study published in April by researchers at the National Center for Earth Observation in Britain. Cecilia Bitz, a professor of climate science at the University of Washington, said that modeling the Earth is complex, and that there are an innumerable amount of small factors that could be taken into account. But even with these uncertainties, scientists have ways of building their models to identify trends that are largely accurate. 'Nothing is defying our big picture about the physics of the climate system,' Prof Bitz said. Overall atmospheric warming has consistently followed modeling predictions for decades. But recently, the fundamental imbalance responsible for this heat has been tilting – catching even scientists off guard. Global warming is a symptom of Earth's energy imbalance, which is a measure of the difference between the total amount of heat reaching Earth from the sun, and the amount radiating back into space. In May 2025, a paper analysing data from a NASA satellite found that this imbalance had grown faster than expected, more than doubling in the past two decades and becoming nearly twice as large as it was previously predicted to be. Dr Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, said climate scientists were still working to understand these findings. There are various theories, such as fewer emissions of aerosols, a type of air pollution that is harmful to human health and that increases the reflectivity of clouds, which bounce the sun's heat back into space. Historically, aerosol emissions have masked the warming effect of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. Over the past half-century or so, as nations reduced certain kinds of air pollution, aerosol emissions fell significantly. According to Dr Hausfather, this change is the primary reason atmospheric warming has accelerated in recent decades. But the most worrying possibility behind Earth's energy imbalance, he said, is how the general nature of clouds may be changing in response to climbing temperatures. It's a feedback loop that could potentially exacerbate warming and is 'one of the single biggest uncertainties in predicting future climate,' he said. As the world continues to emit planet-warming greenhouse gasses, and temperatures climb past what the human world was built to handle, Dr Marvel said, more people will experience climate change in damaging and frightening ways. 'It's always worse than expected when it happens to you,' Dr Marvel said. 'It is one thing to see something in a climate model, and it's a totally different thing to actually experience it in your own life.' NYTIMES Find out more about climate change and how it could affect you on the ST microsite here.
Business Wire
2 days ago
- Business Wire
70% of Americans Say Travel Anxiety Starts at Home
HAWTHORNE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As Americans plan their summer getaways, a new national survey commissioned by Ring reveals that for 70% Americans, the hardest part of vacation isn't missing work emails or updates – it's the stress of what's happening back home. The study, which surveyed over 2,000 Americans about their travel anxieties, found that key concerns included home security (49%), pet care (49%), and family or loved ones needing support (43%). Since respondents could select all concerns that applied to them, the percentages reflect overlapping worries rather than a total of 100% - underscoring how travel-related stress is often multi-layered. For many, the stress begins before the vacation even starts, with over half (52%) saying their concerns kick in either as soon as they leave their property or while they are traveling. 'It's eye-opening to learn that the majority of people worry about what's happening back home before they've even fully settled into their vacation,' said Mimi Swain, Chief Commercial Officer at Ring. 'Vacations should be a time to relax, disconnect, and not think about what's happening at home or what could go wrong.' The emotional toll is clear: 78% of respondents say these home-related worries affect their ability to relax, with over a quarter (27%) reporting a significant impact. And it's not all hypothetical – 42% of Americans report having had a home-related issue that actually disrupted their holiday, such as break-ins, property damage, or other security incidents. Notably, over 15% report that this has happened to them multiple times. When asked how they try to alleviate these concerns, the most common method was asking a friend, neighbor, or family member to check in (58%). However, many are already turning to tech – 40% trust smart home devices or security cameras, and 36% check in on their property remotely through an app or video doorbell. Since respondents could select multiple methods, these approaches often overlap, reflecting how people are layering technology to feel more secure while away from home. This growing reliance on connected technology reflects a major shift in how homeowners manage peace of mind from afar. And the data speaks for itself – 75% agree that being able to check in on their home virtually would make it easier to relax while on vacation. 'With home security being one of the top concerns, there are simple things you can do to give yourself peace of mind, and leave the stress at home,' said Swain. 'Installing a video doorbell or security cameras around the house will help keep your home protected. I also go the extra step and have Ring Alarm and use Virtual Security Guard to have a professional monitor our cameras. If something is really wrong, they will send me a notification and alert the authorities so I can disconnect knowing they will contact me only in an emergency.' About Ring Since its founding in 2013, Ring has been on a mission to make neighborhoods safer, together for everyone. From the first-ever Video Doorbell, to the award-winning DIY Ring Alarm system, Ring's smart home security product line, as well as the Neighbors app, offers users affordable whole-home and neighborhood security. At Ring, we are committed to making security accessible and convenient for everyone—while working hard to bring communities together. Ring is an Amazon company. For more information, visit With Ring, you're always home. Methodology
West Australian
5 days ago
- Sport
- West Australian
Western Force lock Darcy Swain thankful for teammates and coaches in helping him earn Wallabies recall
When Western Force lock Darcy Swain says 'credit to the boys' he is not simply throwing out a cliche for the sake of it. He genuinely means it. Two and a half years after his last Wallabies match, the second rower is on the precipice of a return from the Test wilderness after an excellent first season for the Force. Swain will be one of five Force players who will potentially get more than one crack at the British and Irish Lions, starting this Saturday in the tourists opening match of their nine-game itinerary against the Force at Optus Stadium. The second-rower formed one of Super Rugby's most formidable lock combinations with Force skipper Jeremy Williams, with Swain leading all comers with 86 line-out wins this season and the duo combining for 15 set-piece steals. And Swain credited the environment fostered by the Force coaches and players which had helped him enjoy such a strong debut season out west. 'It' a young, really motivated group here. Guys like Carlo (Tizzano) and Jez (Williams), I see the work they put in and it motivates me a little bit more to be that little bit more professional and learn a few things off them,' he said. 'The minutes as well, playing a lot of minutes, and having to put more time into my body and more time in the computer, those little things really helped me. 'The work of 'SAS' (forwards coach Tom Donnelly) and the sort of collaboration he's done this year with the boys, Lopeti Faifua and Josh Thompson, these young fellas too. 'We all come into the meeting room at the start of the week, we sit down and we talk line-outs, attack, defence. We just nut it out, there's questions, we're sort of arguing with each other, it's really productive and I've loved being a part of that.' Swain, along with fellow Wallabies call-ups Nic White, Dylan Pietsch, Nick Champion de Crespigny and Tom Robertson, will get a first look at the Lions on Saturday for the Force, and the 17-capped Wallaby was thrilled to stay in Perth a little bit longer. 'I would have been pretty disappointed if they took me away, because I really wanted to play for the Force against against the Lions,' he said. 'If I do get that opportunity, it's one that I'm not going to want to look back on and regret a few things. 'I just want to try and make sure really empty the pot this week, get my preparation right, and Saturday will look after itself, but I want to invest in the week.' Swain sought feedback from Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt and assistants Geoff Parling and Laurie Fisher as he plotted his Test comeback, having not pulled on the gold jersey since 2022. 'There was a lot of stuff around my physicality and the breakdown and my carry, a lot around my body height and leg drive and the fundamentals of a tight five player,' he said. One of his last games for the Wallabies came at Optus Stadium against England, and ended in a red card for a headbutt on Jonny Hill — but Swain said he had grown a lot since that unhappy memory, and his support network had played their role in his return to the national team. 'I'm very grateful for my partner, my son, my family, close friends who have put a lot of faith in me and supported me through life,' he said. 'I've had a lot of people corner over the last two years and they've helped me stay motivated. I always believed in myself, that I could get back here, and now it's just trying to get back into the 23 and just keep working on myself. 'I've always felt like I like I was going to get back here, it was just a matter of time.'
