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February 4, 2024
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South Dakota tribe bans governor from reservation over US-Mexico border remarks

South Dakota tribe bans governor from reservation over US-Mexico border remarks https://newsexpress.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/south-dakota-tribe-bans-governor-from-reservation-over-us-mexico-border-remarks_65bfff2caec17-scaled.jpeg 2560 1707 NewsExpress NewsExpress https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ca83badc707ab48d4232a088cf57a3cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g February 4, 2024 February 4, 2024

A South Dakota tribe has banned Republican Gov. Kristi Noem from the Pine Ridge Reservation after she spoke this week about wanting to send razor wire and security personnel to Texas to help deter immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border and also said cartels are infiltrating the state’s reservations.

“Due to the safety of the Oyate, effective immediately, you are hereby Banished from the homelands of the Oglala Sioux Tribe!” Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out said in a Friday statement addressed to Noem. “Oyate” is a word for people or nation.

Star Comes Out accused Noem of trying to use the border issue to help get former U.S. President Donald Trump re-elected and boost her chances of becoming his running mate.

Many of those arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border are Indigenous people from places like El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico who come “in search of jobs and a better life,” the tribal leader added.

“They don’t need to be put in cages, separated from their children like during the Trump Administration, or be cut up by razor wire furnished by, of all places, South Dakota,” he said.

Star Comes Out also addressed Noem’s remarks in the speech to lawmakers Wednesday in which she said a gang calling itself the Ghost Dancers is murdering people on the Pine Ridge Reservation and is affiliated with border-crossing cartels that use South Dakota reservations to spread drugs throughout the Midwest.

Star Comes Out said he took deep offense at her reference, saying the Ghost Dance is one of the Oglala Sioux’s “most sacred ceremonies,” “was used with blatant disrespect and is insulting to our Oyate.”

He added that the tribe is a sovereign nation and does not belong to the state of South Dakota.

Noem responded Saturday in a statement, saying, “It is unfortunate that President (Star) Comes Out chose to bring politics into a discussion regarding the effects of our federal government’s failure to enforce federal laws at the southern border and on tribal lands. My focus continues to be on working together to solve those problems.”

“As I told bipartisan Native American legislators earlier this week, ‘I am not the one with a stiff arm, here. You can’t build relationships if you don’t spend time together,’” she added. “I stand ready to work with any of our state’s Native American tribes to build such a relationship.”

In November, Star Comes Out declared a state of emergency on the Pine Ridge Reservation due to increasing crime. A judge ruled last year that the federal government has a treaty duty to support law enforcement on the reservation, but he declined to rule on the funding level the tribe sought.

Noem has deployed National Guard troops to the Mexican border three times, as have some other Republican governors.

In 2021 she drew criticism for accepting a $1 million donation from a Republican donor to help cover the cost of a two-month deployment of 48 troops there.

___

Trisha Ahmed is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @TrishaAhmed15

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February 4, 2024
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They accidentally killed someone with their car. Now they want reform.

They accidentally killed someone with their car. Now they want reform. https://newsexpress.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/they-accidentally-killed-someone-with-their-car-now-they-want-reform_65bfff2665dde.jpeg 1500 1054 NewsExpress NewsExpress https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ca83badc707ab48d4232a088cf57a3cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g February 4, 2024 February 4, 2024

Jennifer Eikenhorst was driving home with her young daughters one evening after picking them up from a friend’s house. She was on a rural road and came to a stop at the top of a hill, so she didn’t see the approaching motorcyclist.

“His name was David, and when I entered the intersection, it was too late for him,” she said.

At that moment, Eikenhorst became a CADI, an acronym for Causing Accidental Death or Injury — a term coined by the late Maryann Gray, founder of the Hyacinth Fellowship, an organization that offers comfort and guidance to people who accidentally kill or seriously injure someone.

At least 30,000 people become CADIs and their victims each year, said Chris Yaw, the fellowship’s president. Many accidental deaths involve guns or medical mishaps, but the majority, he said, are caused by car crashes.

The deaths have inspired some CADIs, like Eikenhorst, to seek reforms to the nation’s car-centric transportation system that allows otherwise innocent people to become unintentional killers.

“We can’t escape risk with vehicles, but there are so many things we can do to improve their safety,” she said, suggesting more distracted-driving awareness campaigns and enhanced car-safety features.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a lobbying group that represents most domestic car manufacturers, said in a statement that vehicles “continue to get even more safe as automakers across the board test, develop and integrate breakthrough safety technologies that help save lives and prevent injuries.”

That’s thanks to new features like exterior cameras and computer-controlled braking, as well as better blind spot detection systems.

Despite the improvements, pedestrian deaths continue to climb, reaching a 40-year high in the U.S. in 2022. Traffic deaths have also risen in recent years, according to a New York Times analysis.

In the first half of 2023, an estimated 19,515 people were killed in traffic crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Eikenhorst, who was not found criminally liable for the motorcyclist’s death in 2016, said the fact she was driving responsibly almost made it harder to accept.

“I was obeying the law. I was not negligent. I had never been in an accident or even ticketed,” she said. “I was the strict mom, and this still happened to me.”

It could happen to anyone, she warns.

“One of the most profound things my lawyer said to me is that a driver’s license is a license to kill,” she said.

“I’d never thought about it that way, but we give these licenses to 16-year-olds who are still developing emotionally, so there’s a lot of systemic issues I think could be improved upon.”

Yaw said CADIs don’t refer to themselves as victims, because “we understand there’s a victim in any accident, and we don’t want to take away from their victimhood.”

But, he said, “In any accident, there’s someone who caused it that feels terrible.”

Eikenhorst said CADIs endure unique suffering.

“It’s a complete devastation of your entire identity,” she said. “I was a wife and mom, a teacher and community member. In an instant I was shattered and lost all that as I went into a season of depression.”

Even in those rare moments when she could function, she felt guilty that she had her children and the deceased victim’s family no longer had him.

“We question our entire existence,” she said, “and believe we are no longer worthy to live.”

Jessica Ward’s accident occurred just before the holidays last year, as she and her husband were leaving a mall outlet in Asheville, North Carolina. Ward, a former medical administrator, said the outlet was right off the main interstate, where accidents commonly occurred.

As Ward merged onto the interstate, she said she looked both ways three, possibly four, times. Then she heard a thump.

It was an 18-year-old motorcyclist.

“It’s a warped sense where you almost wish you were on your phone, because then you can know it’s your fault,” she said. “But I couldn’t have done anything different that day.”

Ward was an experienced driver who owned pickup trucks and a mobile home. She considered herself extremely cautious. But her accident showed her just how inherently dangerous driving is.

“Cars are the main way we get necessities in life,” she said. “They are safer than what they used to be, but they are still 5,000-pound metal vehicles.”

Isabella Chu, associate director of the data core at the Stanford Center for Population Health Sciences, blames unintentional car deaths on a transportation infrastructure that requires people to operate unsafe heavy machinery.

“We have made driving a requirement to access mobility in most of America,” she said. “But driving is a hazardous activity that results in tens of thousands of deaths and millions of injuries every year.”

“Unless something changes radically,” she said, “it’s pretty much a statistical certainty there will be over 40,000 deaths and millions of injuries every year.”

David Peters, an Episcopal priest from Texas, became a CADI in 1994 when he was only 19.

He was driving with his roommate to church one evening when the sunlight pierced the windshield and momentarily blinded him. He hit a median barrier, then swerved into oncoming traffic.

“I looked up and saw a motorcycle coming straight at me, and that’s the last thing I remember,” he said.

Peters said he believes society needs to do a better job of communicating the dangers of cars and of dismantling the systems that force us to use them.

“If people knew how dangerous car culture is for all of us, and how we’re all one steering-wheel turn away from a horrific accident that will feel like a murder,” he said, “then that is the only thing that might help us all dream of a better world.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

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February 4, 2024
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California’s Lake Shasta rising from severe-drought levels in stunning before and after images

California’s Lake Shasta rising from severe-drought levels in stunning before and after images https://newsexpress.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/californias-lake-shasta-rising-from-severe-drought-levels-in-stunning-before-and-after-images_65bfff1ec9d40.jpeg 2560 1727 NewsExpress NewsExpress https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ca83badc707ab48d4232a088cf57a3cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g February 4, 2024 February 4, 2024

California’s Lake Shasta rising from severe-drought levels in stunning before and after images – Yahoo Sports

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February 4, 2024
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Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped 50 years ago. Now she’s famous for her dogs

Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped 50 years ago. Now she’s famous for her dogs https://newsexpress.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/newspaper-heiress-patty-hearst-was-kidnapped-50-years-ago-now-shes-famous-for-her-dogs_65bfff10a5f7c-scaled.jpeg 2560 1678 NewsExpress NewsExpress https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ca83badc707ab48d4232a088cf57a3cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g February 4, 2024 February 4, 2024

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Newspaper heiress Patricia “Patty” Hearst was kidnapped at gunpoint 50 years ago Sunday by the Symbionese Liberation Army, later joining her captors in a 1974 San Francisco bank robbery that earned her a prison sentence.

The abduction and subsequent trial of Hearst, then a 19-year-old college student and the granddaughter of wealthy newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, was one of the most sensational and captivating cases of the 1970s.

Hearst will turn 70 on Feb. 20. She is now known as Patricia Hearst Shaw after she married a police officer who guarded her when she was out on bail, the late Bernard Shaw. She has been in the news in recent years for her dogs, mostly French bulldogs, that have won prizes in the Westminster Kennel Club dog show.

Hearst’s allegiance to the Symbionese Liberation Army raised questions about Stockholm syndrome, a common term deployed to describe the bond that victims of kidnappings or hostage situations sometimes develop with their captors.

Stockholm syndrome got its name from an August 1973 failed bank robbery in Sweden’s capital. Rather than a diagnosis of a disorder, experts describe it as a psychological coping mechanism used by some hostages to endure being held captive and abused.

Hearst, who went by the name “Tania” in the group, denounced her family and posed for a photograph carrying a weapon in front of their flag. The self-styled radicals viewed aspects of U.S. society as racist and oppressive, and they were accused of killing a California school superintendent.

As a member of a wealthy and powerful family, Hearst was kidnapped to bring attention to the Symbionese Liberation Army, according to the FBI. The group demanded food and money donations for the poor in exchange for Hearst’s release, though she remained a captive even after her family met the ransom through a $2 million food distribution program.

Hearst took part in the group’s robbery of a San Francisco bank on April 15, 1974. Surveillance cameras captured her wielding an assault rifle during the crime.

She wasn’t arrested until the FBI caught up with her on Sept. 18, 1975, in San Francisco, 19 months after her abduction.

Her trial was one of the most sensational of that decade. The prosecutor played a jail cell recording of Hearst talking with a friend in which she was confident, cursing and fully aware of her role with the Symbionese Liberation Army.

While Hearst was sentenced to seven years in prison, President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence in 1979 after she served 22 months behind bars. She later was pardoned by President Bill Clinton.

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February 4, 2024
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‘Just send it straight to collections’: This TikToker hasn’t paid her credit card bill in 7 months — says she needs the money to cover the ‘bare necessities.’ Is she making a mistake?

‘Just send it straight to collections’: This TikToker hasn’t paid her credit card bill in 7 months — says she needs the money to cover the ‘bare necessities.’ Is she making a mistake? https://newsexpress.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/just-send-it-straight-to-collections-this-tiktoker-hasnt-paid-her-credit-card-bill-in-7-months-says-she-needs-the-money-to-cover-the-bare-necessities_65bfff08d4e49.jpeg 728 400 NewsExpress NewsExpress https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ca83badc707ab48d4232a088cf57a3cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g February 4, 2024 February 4, 2024

Paying off your credit card every month is one of the first rules of personal finance. But with high inflation rates, many Americans are finding it increasingly hard to follow this solid piece of advice.

Brandi, who goes by @miss.brandiii on TikTok, recently posted a video talking about why she isn’t paying off her credit card bills anymore.

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“If you’re anything like me, just a normal person with a normal job in this s— a– economy that can’t afford anything these days, except your bare necessities, then you’ve slacked on paying some of your bills,” the mom of two says.

Brandi adds that she hasn’t paid off her credit card bill for the past seven months, despite making decent money as a salesperson. It’s just too expensive to pay the credit card and her basic needs.

Her credit card company eventually called and told her that they’re close to sending her debts to a collections agency. The credit card representative warned her that this could seriously affect her credit score.

“Do you also realize that right now my credit score means absolute f— all, nothing to me?” Brandi says. “Do I look like I’m buying a house? Do I look like I’m buying a car? Does it look like I can afford to buy anything ever again?”

“I’m going to save us both the time here,” she says she told the credit card company employee, “just send it straight to collections because between now and next month if you keep trying to call me, nothing’s going to change.”

Credit card balances are common

Brandi isn’t the only one giving the finger to the credit card companies. Bankrate discovered that 49% of Americans carry a balance on their card from one month to the next as of November 2023. This is up 10% since 2021.

But most people aren’t carrying these balances due to overconsumption or a shopping addiction. Bankrate’s study says that 43% of cardholders’ balances are due to an unexpected or emergency expense.

Inflation has shot up 3.4% since last year, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Shelter, electricity and food have all seen price increases, making it harder for people to make ends meet.

This is especially true if they’re facing an unexpected expense. Only 63% of Americans have enough money saved to pay for a $400 emergency, according to the most recent Federal Reserve numbers.

“Inflation is making an existing trend worse,” Bankrate senior industry analyst Ted Rossman told CBS MoneyWatch. “We’ve been seeing this for a while, with more people carrying more debt for longer periods of time. It’s moving in the wrong direction.”

Read more: Don’t miss out: Jeff Bezos reveals the secret to prime real estate profits — say goodbye to landlord headaches

Does your credit score really matter?

Unfortunately, ignoring your credit card bill only makes matters worse. You may find, like Brandi, that before long you’ll receive a call from a collection agency. But even if it doesn’t escalate to that point, each month you leave a balance on your card is likely to impact your credit score.

And if you trash your credit score, that will only make it harder for you to buy a home or a car, or even get a new credit card in the future.

But it’s tough to care about a credit score when you’re struggling to get by. Brandi says she’s putting off her credit card payments because she needs to focus on buying essentials for herself and her kids: food, rent, car payments, medicine and clothes.

This is fair. Even personal finance celebrity Dave Ramsey — whose whole schtick is being anti-debt — has advised a radio show caller to put food on the table for his kids before paying off their credit card bills.

Though you may not be able to pay off all your credit card bills right now, you do have options. You can try to negotiate with your credit card company to lower your interest rate.

All you have to do is call up your credit card’s customer service department. It’s not guaranteed that they’ll do this, but it’s also not an uncommon request.

The credit card company is more likely to lower your rate if you have a history of paying on time or have a good credit score. But if you don’t have a squeaky clean credit background or the customer service representative is playing hardball, you can ask for a temporary interest rate cut to show that you’re committed to paying down your debt.

Trump reveals criteria for running mate, name drops two top Republicans

Trump reveals criteria for running mate, name drops two top Republicans https://newsexpress.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/trump-reveals-criteria-for-running-mate-name-drops-two-top-republicans_65bfff0330955.jpeg 1280 720 NewsExpress NewsExpress https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ca83badc707ab48d4232a088cf57a3cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g February 4, 2024 February 4, 2024

Former President Trump revealed his criteria for a running mate on Sunday, but he told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that he won’t announce a vice presidential pick “for a little while.”

Trump made the comments in an interview with Bartiromo that aired on “Sunday Morning Futures.” He said the most important factor is to ensure his running mate would be able to step up and handle the presidency in the case of an emergency.

“What criteria are you using to identify who your running mate is?” Bartiromo asked.

“Always it’s gotta be who is going to be a good president. Obviously you always have to think that, because in case of emergency. Things happen, right? No matter who you are, things happen. That’s gotta be number one,” Trump responded.

TRUMP, RFK JR SIDE WITH TEXAS IN BORDER FIGHT WITH BIDEN ADMIN AS 25 STATES SHOW SUPPORT

Former President Donald Trump in New Hampshire — Former President Trump revealed his criteria for a running mate on Sunday, but he told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that he won’t announce a vice presidential pick “for a little while.”

“Who is your running mate?” Bartiromo pressed.

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“Well, I have a lot of good people. I have a lot of good ideas,” he added, saying he “talks to everybody.”

VOTERS SHARE TOP RUNNING MATE CHOICES FOR TRUMP IF ELECTED: ‘IT HAS TO BE SOMEONE YOUNGER’

“You know, I called [South Carolina Sen.] Tim Scott and people like Tim Scott, and I said you’re a much better candidate for me than you are for yourself,” Trump said. “When I watched him, he was fine. He was good, but he was very low key.”

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina in New Hampshire — Trump says Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., is a better advocate for the Trump campaign than he was even for his own presidential campaign.

“I watched him in the last week, defending me and sticking up for me and fighting for me – I said, man, you’re a much better person for me than you are for yourself,” he continued.

Trump went on to praise South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as well, noting that she said publicly that she would never run against him, “because I could never beat him.”

TRUMP ASKS SUPREME COURT TO KEEP NAME ON COLORADO BALLOT

Former President Donald Trump leaves the courtroom for a lunch break during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court on November 06, 2023 in New York City.

Trump also denied reports that his campaign had reached out to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to explore a potential ticket with him early on in the campaign season. Trump said the interaction “never happened.”

Original article source: Trump reveals criteria for running mate, name drops two top Republicans

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February 4, 2024
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A woman stole a memory card from a truck. The gruesome footage is now key to an Alaska murder trial

A woman stole a memory card from a truck. The gruesome footage is now key to an Alaska murder trial https://newsexpress.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/a-woman-stole-a-memory-card-from-a-truck-the-gruesome-footage-is-now-key-to-an-alaska-murder-trial_65bffef83c085-scaled.jpeg 2560 1707 NewsExpress NewsExpress https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ca83badc707ab48d4232a088cf57a3cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g February 4, 2024 February 4, 2024

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A woman with a lengthy criminal history including theft, assault and prostitution got into a truck with a man who had picked her up for a “date” near downtown Anchorage. When he left her alone in the vehicle, she stole a digital memory card from the center console.

Now, more than four years later, what she found on that card is key to a double murder trial set to begin this week: gruesome photos and videos of a woman being beaten and strangled at a Marriott hotel, her attacker speaking in a strong accent as he urged her to die, her blanket-covered body being snuck outside on a luggage cart.

“In my movies, everybody always dies,” the voice says on one video. “What are my followers going to think of me? People need to know when they are being serial-killed.”

About a week after she took the SD card, the woman turned it over to police, who said they recognized the voice as that of Brian Steven Smith, now 52, a South Africa native they knew from a prior investigation, court documents say.

Smith has pleaded not guilty to 14 charges, including first- and second-degree murder, sexual assault and tampering with evidence, in the deaths of Kathleen Henry, 30, and Veronica Abouchuk, who was 52 when her family reported her missing in February 2019, seven months after they last saw her.

Henry and Abouchuk were both Alaska Native women who had experienced homelessness. They were from small villages in western Alaska, Henry from Eek and Abouchuk from Stebbins.

Authorities say Henry was the victim whose death was recorded at the TownePlace Suites by Marriott, a hotel in midtown Anchorage. Smith was registered to stay there from Sept. 2 to Sept. 4, 2019; the first images showing her body were time-stamped at about 1 a.m. on Sept. 4, police said.

The last images on the card were taken early on Sept. 6 and showed Henry’s body in the back of a black pickup, according to charging documents. Location data showed that at the time the photo was taken, Smith’s phone was in the area of Rainbow Valley Road, along the Seward Highway south of Anchorage, the same area where Henry’s body was found several weeks later, police said.

As detectives interrogated Smith about the Marriott case, authorities said, he offered up more information to police who escorted him to a bathroom: He had killed another woman, and he went on to identify her — Abouchuk — from a photo and to provide the location of her remains, along the Old Glenn Highway north of Anchorage.

“With no prompting, he tells the troopers in the bathroom, ‘I’m going to make you famous,’” District Attorney Brittany Dunlop said during a court hearing last week. “He comes back in and says … ‘You guys got some more time? You want to keep talking?’ And then discloses this other murder.”

Alaska State Troopers in 2018 incorrectly identified another body as that of Abouchuk, because Abouchuk’s ID had been discovered with it, for reasons that remain unclear. But with the information Smith provided, investigators re-examined the case and used dental records to confirm a skull with a bullet wound found in the area Smith identified was Abouchuk’s, authorities have said.

Smith’s attorney, Timothy Ayer, unsuccessfully sought to have the digital memory card’s evidence — or even mention of it — excluded at trial. The woman who turned in the card initially claimed she had simply found it on the street, and it wasn’t until a second interview that she confessed she had stolen the card from Smith’s truck while he tried to get money from an ATM and she had it for a week before giving it to police, he said.

For that reason, he argued, prosecutors would not be able to demonstrate the provenance of the 39 photos and 12 videos, establish whether they were originals or duplicates, or say for sure whether they had been tampered with.

“The state cannot produce a witness to testify that the video fairly and accurately depicts any act that actually happened,” Ayer wrote.

However, Third Judicial District Judge Kevin Saxby ruled late Friday that the woman can testify about her possession of the card until she handed it over to police and that the recordings can be properly authenticated.

Henry’s family has not spoken publicly about her death and efforts to reach relatives have not been successful. Abouchuk’s family has not returned messages from The Associated Press.

“These were two Alaska Native women,” Dunlop, then the assistant district attorney, said in 2019 after Smith was charged. “And I know that hits home here in Alaska, and we’re cognizant of that. We treat them with dignity and respect.”

Authorities said Smith, who is in custody at the Anchorage Correctional Facility, came to Alaska in 2014 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen the same month Henry was killed.

In a 2019 letter to the AP, he declined to discuss the case. He added that he was doing well: “I have lost weight, I have much less stress and I am sober.”

His wife, Stephanie Bissland of Anchorage, and a sister acting as a family spokesperson in South Africa, both declined to comment until after the trial.

The trial, expected to last three to four weeks, was scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection.

Prosecutors had suggested the possibility of closing the courtroom to prevent the gruesome videos from being seen by the public. The Associated Press, the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska’s News Source and Alaska Public Media objected to any such move in a letter to the court’s presiding judge.

Afterward, Saxby said he has no intention of keeping the public from the courtroom, but safeguards will be in place to prevent those in the gallery or watching the trial’s livestream from seeing them.

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February 4, 2024
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Feb 5 – 11 Issue

Feb 5 – 11 Issue https://newsexpress.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/NE-Feb-05-2024_Page_01-scaled.jpg 1707 2560 NewsExpress NewsExpress https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ca83badc707ab48d4232a088cf57a3cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g February 4, 2024 February 4, 2024

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February 4, 2024
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‘TRANSPORT REVOLUTION’

‘TRANSPORT REVOLUTION’ https://newsexpress.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/featured.jpg 1200 630 NewsExpress NewsExpress https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ca83badc707ab48d4232a088cf57a3cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g February 4, 2024 February 4, 2024

Iloilo City, Futran inks MOU for establishment of podcars transport system

By Remegio G. Castor

The future of transportation is coming to Iloilo City.
Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas together with Vice Mayor Jeffrey Ganzon and City Councilor Sedfrey Cabaluna, chair of the City Council’s transportation committee, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Futran Philippines Inc. President Jose Christopher Fornier II for a feasibility study on the establishment of an environment-friendly mass transport system using podcars in the city and neighboring municipalities.
The MOU signing held last January 30, 2024 was witnessed by all the Iloilo City Councilors.
The project, that will cost around PHP 16 billion, will cover 20 kilometers of transportation line for suspended podcars traversing Iloilo City and neighboring towns.
Podcars, also known as personal rapid transit, is a mode of public transport featuring small low-capacity automated vehicles operating on a network of specially built guideways.
Fornier presented the project proposal to Mayor Treñas last year.
“As the Mayor of the City of Love, I am thrilled to announce that Futran Philippines, Inc. has presented an exciting proposal that could revolutionize transportation in our city! With the potential implementation of podcars, we can finally bid farewell to the frustrating traffic and usher in a new era of sustainable commuting,” Treñas then announced following the project presentation.
Initial information obtained from company source said that the podcars transport system in Iloilo City will cover 20 kilometers and could be extended to the neighboring towns of Pavia, Oton, Leganes and San Miguel.
Iloilo City will be the among the first three cities in the country to benefit from the podcars transport system through Public-Private Partnership. The other two cities that accepted the project were Mandaue City, Cebu province and Ilagan City, Isabela.
The podcars transport system has been proven to be safe for passengers based on the countries that use this system such as Germany, Japan, and China.
The Philippines is the first in Souteast Asia to adopt the modern environment-friendly transportation.
The company ensures that its products are safe and reliable as it is under the approval of Germany’s TUV Rheinland, the world’s recognized technical service provider and certification body.
The proposed transport system will not disturb the usual road activities in the city, citing the company’s modern transport technology that is going to be above ground.

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February 4, 2024
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Solon’s criticism of More Power on Jan. 2 blackout is unfounded, says MORE Power CEO

Solon’s criticism of More Power on Jan. 2 blackout is unfounded, says MORE Power CEO https://newsexpress.com.ph/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/featured.jpg 1200 630 NewsExpress NewsExpress https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/ca83badc707ab48d4232a088cf57a3cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g February 4, 2024 February 4, 2024

Iloilo City electric distribution utility MORE Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power) dismissed the allegations made by ACT Teachers Partylist Rep France Castro regarding the need for the company to be held accountable for the widespread blackout in Panay Island.
MORE Power President and CEO, Roel Castro, stated that it’s difficult to respond to Representative Castro’s accusations, especially when these lack basis. “It’s difficult to address the statement of Rep. Castro. In fairness and with respect to the Congresswoman, she doesn’t understand the whole system, and it’s difficult to respond if their basis is wrong. It was just an accusation without basis,” explained the MORE Power CEO.
Although the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) previously identified the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) as the entity at fault for the Panaywide blackout, Rep. Castro remains the only one to issue a statement including MORE Power as one of those responsible for the incident.
“The main accountability is with them because it is NGCP that is tasked with maintaining the stability of the grid. The NGCP said it would finish the Panay-Negros-Cebu Interconnection Project in August 2023. And they were not! We are now in January and they promised this in August,” explained Lotilla.
Panay is the sixth largest island in the Philippines, consisting of the provinces of Aklan, Antique, Capiz, and Iloilo. MORE POWER’s Castro explained that while it’s unavoidable for there to be some disturbances or problems in the system, the collapse and subsequent total blackout could have been avoided if NGCP had taken immediate action. He further explained that at afternoon on January 2, 83 megawatts were lost from the grid system due to a Panay coal plant shutdown, which should have been addressed. However, it was followed by six more plant shutdowns.
“After two hours, six more plants sequentially shut down. The question is why there were consecutive shutdowns after two hours? The system operator, NGCP, is supposed to protect the system from collapsing. Seven plants on the island were out, and the fact that a total blackout occurred means that the system was not protected. This is a simplistic understanding of what happened,” MORE’s Castro said.
The MORE Power executive admitted that during the peak of the El Niño Phenomenon, a similar incident could occur if NGCP fails to protect the entire grid system. “Even if there is enough generating capacity, a similar total blackout could happen again if the system operator will not be active or will not be working,” he added.