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News from November 5, 2025

488 articles found

Compulsory housing order for poultry and captive birds issued to combat bird flu spread
Technology

Compulsory housing order for poultry and captive birds issued to combat bird flu spread

In a statement issued this afternoon, Mr Heydon said the order will come into effect on Monday, November 10. "Due to the increased risk of avian influenza to our poultry, I am taking action to reduce the threat to our industry and to our poultry farmers’ livelihoods,” he said. The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) had called on the minister to impose the order following an outbreak of the highly contagious disease amongst a flock of turkeys on a farm in Co Carlow which Mr Heydon said is a “small operation”. That outbreak has led to the implementation of a 2km protection zone and a 10km surveillance zone around the implicated farm. In recent months, there have also been several cases of avian flu detected in wild birds in Ireland, mainly sea birds in coastal areas. Last month, around 23,000 chickens were culled at a commercial business in Omagh, Co Tyrone after suspected cases of the disease were detected. Today's News in 90 Seconds - Wednesday, November 5 Nigel Sweetman, National chair of the Poultry Committee of the IFA, said containment of the disease is essential to prevent the spread. "Similar to covid, we all stayed at home when covid struck in 2020,” he told Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1. "A housing order compels free range farmers to keep their birds indoors and to restrict movements onto the site which is very important also, that it keeps unnecessary visits out of farms.” Dr June Fanning, chief vet at the Department of Agriculture, outlined the “simple” biosecurity measures that must be taken by farmers during an outbreak. "Even if you've only one or two birds or a commercial poultry flock, it's changing dedicated footwear, changing clothes before you interact with the birds, feeding them away from wild birds, reducing that interaction between wild birds and kept birds, reducing the number of visitors onto a holding, cleaning and disinfecting vehicles.” Prior to today’s announcement, Ms Fanning commented said that a housing order is not the protective measure that is required now. “Housing alone won't protect the birds because obviously the virus can be walked in on dirty footwear into a house. However, it is an additional measure.” She reassured consumers that Christmas turkey supplies, will be as of now, will be unaffected due to the isolated nature of the latest outbreak on the Carlow farm. Fota Wildlife Park in Cork yesterday confirmed that it will remain closed to the public until the end of November following an outbreak in the facility a month ago which killed three geese, with a fourth goose presenting with symptoms of the disease. “As part of Fota Wildlife Park’s engagement and consultation with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, a comprehensive strategy of targeted mitigation measures is being undertaken at the Park,” Fota said in a statement. “This includes isolating the bird species in its care from the wild population, and the construction of temporary aviaries to house birds. This is being done to limit the risk of further infection from wild birds.”

Keith Kelly
EU Commission and Parliament face reckoning over €1.8 trillion budget clash
Technology

EU Commission and Parliament face reckoning over €1.8 trillion budget clash

“For me, it is clear that the Commission and Parliament must stand united when it comes to something as fundamental as the EU budget,” Weber said, striking a conciliatory tone. “Today, I am confident that we will find a solution.” Center-left Socialists and Democrats chief Iratxe García warned the Commission of the consequences of ignoring Parliament’s demands. “Together with the other pro-European groups, we are ready to reject the national plans in the next MFF,” she warned before the meeting. Renewed skilling of workers, protecting people from economic shocks and bringing down house prices all need to be addressed to win her party’s support, she said. Commission in tight spot Despite the lack of a concrete offer to lawmakers, the Commission is well aware of the Parliament’s demands and understands the sense of urgency, Mureșan said. “We feel a proposal by their side which satisfies the Parliament is needed over the course of the next days,” he said, adding that it’s a “matter of political will” by the executive to correct its proposals. “We have been listening, and we are aware that there are three areas of concern for the Parliament and on these, we will constructively engage with them,” a Commission official told POLITICO.

Gabriel Gavin,Gregorio Sorgi,Max Griera
America's military might bears down on Venezuela
Technology

America's military might bears down on Venezuela

Driving the news: America's largest warship, the USS Gerald R. Ford, is steaming toward the region. Observers are tracking its progress via satellite imagery. The Ford and its escorts bring with them offensive and defensive punch — such as fighter, transport and early warning aircraft; helicopters; missiles; and jamming-and-spying tools — as well as thousands of troops.Vessels already in the region include the Iwo Jima, Gravely and Stockdale. Some are packing Tomahawks. Overhead, bombers are ducking in and out, prodding Caracas.The U.S. has thus far killed at least 65 people in 15 strikes on alleged drug-smuggling vessels off South America. Trump has made clear he's considering land targets in Venezuela next. The intrigue: The carrier strike group's tasking and eventual arrival is additional evidence of the Trump administration shifting its focus closer to home. Stateside, there's the $175 billion Golden Dome project and the dispatch of troops to U.S. cities and the southern border.Zooming out, Trump's war on the cartels is poised to expand further — possibly to Mexico. What they're saying: "SOUTHCOM has traditionally been a backwater," Mark Cancian, a retired colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Axios. "Once in a generation something happened, but the administration's focus on homeland and hemispheric security has produced more attention, and we're seeing that being implemented with this military buildup." Friction point: An overextension of ships and those embarked could have cascading readiness consequences for other theaters. The U.S. has 11 carriers. Two or three are typically at sea at any one time."I think there needs to be a complete discussion about how important this is to us," Bradley Martin, a RAND senior policy researcher and former surface warfare officer, told Axios. "What resources are we using, what types of things are we forgoing as a result of carrying this action out, and how long do we want to be doing this?" he said. "When do we say we've done enough?" By the numbers: The Navy's presence around Venezuela — where clandestine CIA operations are underway, according to Trump — is becoming less popular, according to YouGov polls of 2,000-plus U.S. adults. The biggest dip, it found, was among Republicans: 58% support the armada now, compared with 68% in September. Disapproval, meanwhile, has grown from 13% to 17%. What we're hearing: Comparisons, and plenty of them. Popular ones include Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti in 1994, the invasions of Grenada and Panama in the 1980s, and even the Cuban missile crisis, in terms of scale and concern. (Reuters described the military buildup as the "largest unrelated to disaster relief" in three decades.) More from Axios: Trump orders more Venezuela briefings for Congress Admiral overseeing Venezuelan boat strikes steps down

Colin Demarest
Accused Lumby killer still in custody, awaiting April court date
Technology

Accused Lumby killer still in custody, awaiting April court date

Vitali Stefanski, the Lumby man accused of killing his ex-wife, was back briefly in court on Oct. 31 for a case management conference, and will stand trial next spring. Stefanski has been charged with second degree murder in the death of his ex-wife, Tatjana Stefanski. She was reported missing from her Lumby home on Apr. 13, 2024, and her body was found the next day. Stefanski has been in custody since June 1, 2024 and has not sought a bail hearing in supreme court, according to the BC Prosecution Service. He will next appear in court on April 13, 2026 for a pretrial application (voir dire) that is estimated to continue for three weeks. After electing to be tried before a judge and jury nearly a year ago, Stefanski's trial will begin on May 25, 2026, nearly two years to the day of his initial arrest. The trial is expected to last five weeks. Long Process The case has drawn scrutiny after B.C.’s police watchdog launched an investigation into how RCMP handled alleged threats made against Tatjana months before her death. According to Jason Gaudreault, Tatjana's boyfriend at the time, the couple went to police about "extreme" threats sent to Stefanski's father in Germany, threatening to "chop her up" and "send her back in a body bag." Tatjana was first reported as abducted from her home in Lumby on April 13. Mounties said she was believed to be with her ex-husband and told the public to keep an eye out for his vehicle. Her body was found the next day, April 14, in a rural location and a man believed to be involved in her death was arrested in the general vicinity. The man was later released from police custody with conditions. It took until May 31 for Stefanski to be arrested. Staff Sgt. Jason Smart with the RCMP acknowledged the many challenges of the case. "The recent charges brought against Mr. Stefanski are the result of the tireless investigative work done by the members of the Southeast District Major Crimes Unit and Vernon RCMP Detachment," Smart said. Since Tatjana's death, the Tatjana Martin Foundation of Hope was been set up on Facebook, where a board of directors made up of "seven diversely skilled and experienced individuals" have been busy developing plans and goals for the first year of the foundation's work.

Bowen Assman
Ex Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer says 'SD cards are lame!' and opts to rescue a 200 lb 14-inch magnetic disc drive from the '80s with just 622 MB of storage
Technology

Ex Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer says 'SD cards are lame!' and opts to rescue a 200 lb 14-inch magnetic disc drive from the '80s with just 622 MB of storage

Even if you don't know the name 'Dave Plummer', you're certainly familiar with his work. This former Microsoft engineer is known for coding Pinball on Windows NT, as well as creating Task Manager. Well, today, he's a YouTuber and creator, and he's decided to fit his home with a whopping 200-pound 14-inch disc drive, which launched in Japan in 1982 and came to America in 1983. The forty-year-old tech may not store much, but it does have a loud sound. Wait, that's not a good thing? In a video titled "SD Cards are LAME!", Plummer shows off his DEC RA82 disc drive. "You can feel it through the floor when it seeks hard" is what Plummer tells the camera, in what I can only assume is a bit of glee. In order to even get the drive up into their home rack, Plummer ordered a hydraulic scissor lift. "You don't so much install one of these as you do birth it like an ocean liner". To get the drive operational with his choice of OS (Unix), Plummer did a low-level format to handle future data, partitioned the disk into different regions for storage, and then created file systems on those partitions. And what does all this weight, size, and effort get you? A whopping 622 MB of storage. That's enough storage to fit Balatro around nine times, or Astarion's right arm, probably. Okay, the point of this drive clearly isn't efficiency. Plummer isn't buying this to beat out the best external SSDs or to boot up a quick game of Arc Raiders. He's buying this tech, as the kids say, for the love of the game. "What I really wanted was period-correct storage with its own beautiful set of limitations, rituals, and noises". Plummer addresses critiques of inefficiency in his latest video. He brings up that a common response is to say that running vintage hardware is 'neat but practical', and Plummer argues not only is vintage hardware designed to be run together, but it's educational and 'it's beautiful.' That last one is hard to ignore, when we take into account both the retro off-white look and the hum the entire rack makes when it spins up. In the last minute of "SD Cards are Lame!", Plummer hits the spindle motor, trips the breaker in the machine, and then it finally runs. Classic. What the device returns is the hum of machinery, the spinning of drives, and the general cacophony of retro bleebs and bloops. If you've ever held an external drive up to your ear while it's running, you will recognise those familiar clicks, taps, and scratches that storage tends to make, and it's at full force with the RA 82. Plummer is right: vintage hardware certainly is quite educational.

James Bentley
IĠM calls out Paula Mifsud Bonnici for blocking camera during Prime Ministers speech
Technology

IĠM calls out Paula Mifsud Bonnici for blocking camera during Prime Ministers speech

Updated at 12:10pm with Paula Mifsud Bonnici apology The Maltese Institute of Journalists (IĠM) has called out PN MP Paula Mifsud Bonnici for blocking a camera transmitting the Prime Minister’s budget replica. The incident happened toward the end of Robert Abela’s speech when he went slightly over time and had his microphone switched off by the Speaker. Mifsud Bonnici then stood up and blocked a PBS camera to prevent the live feed. This led to the session being suspended for five minutes, after which Labour MP and Minister Byron Camilleri requested a ruling. On Wednesday, the IĠM said that while it understands the PM’s speech stepped over the time limit, it felt that it must still call out the act of obstructing a live transmission and interfering in public broadcasting. “Politics is a heated environment but there should be no room for this sort of behaviour in our country's highest institution.” The IĠM said that the opposition should’ve contested the matter with the Speaker rather than obstruct a cameraperson from doing his work. Apart from condemnation, Mifsud Bonnici’s stunt was also the target of mockery on social media, with one particular page comparing it to the image of the Tiananmen Square Tank Man image.

Matthew Farrugia
Space Business Growth Expected to Accelerate Under Takaichi
Technology

Space Business Growth Expected to Accelerate Under Takaichi

The growing focus on space policy is raising expectations for faster development of related businesses and technologies. During a recent meeting of the National Growth Strategy Council, space was designated as one of 17 key strategic fields. Attention on the sector has also intensified as Takaichi previously served as minister in charge of space policy. Reflecting this renewed interest, the 2025 Space Summit was held in Obihiro, Hokkaido last month, drawing numerous industry figures and government officials to discuss Japan’s future direction in space development, satellite data utilization, and related business opportunities. At the summit, Odajiri Norifumi, president of Space Port, revealed plans to build a new launch facility to meet rising demand for large rocket launches. The project aims to create what he described as a “space route” connecting distant cities via suborbital travel — effectively enabling intercontinental transportation through outer space. Hokkaido’s Tokachi region, with its favorable climate and open coastline to the southeast, is viewed as an ideal location for a new Asian “space hub,” and local industry groups are working to establish it as a center for space-related businesses. According to Daiki Kato, senior manager at the Japan Research Institute, the global space business is expanding rapidly and is projected to maintain high growth in the years ahead. The World Economic Forum estimates the size of the global space industry at 630 billion dollars in 2023, with forecasts reaching approximately 1.8 trillion dollars by 2035 — a pace far exceeding overall global GDP growth. The driving forces behind this expansion, Kato explained, include the rise of private-sector leadership, falling costs, and diversification of space-based solutions. “Space development used to be led by governments,” he said, “but now we’re seeing more private-sector participation, including large corporations like Amazon and a wave of startups entering the field.” Private innovation has significantly reduced access costs through technologies such as reusable rockets and miniaturized satellites pioneered by companies like SpaceX. Another factor is the growing range of commercial services derived from satellite technology. Originally designed for government use, satellite-based communications and Earth observation are now expanding into civilian applications, while private companies are also exploring new frontiers such as lunar exploration and in-orbit servicing — areas once limited to national space agencies like NASA and JAXA. This rapid growth, Kato noted, has intensified global competition. “In the United States, SpaceX continues to lead the market, supported by a government framework that not only promotes technological development but also acts as a major customer for private companies,” he said. Meanwhile, China is pursuing a contrasting approach, maintaining state-led control over its rapidly developing space sector. As Japan positions space as a pillar of its economic strategy, industry experts say the coming years will determine whether the Takaichi administration can turn the country’s growing ambition in orbit into tangible results on the ground. Source: テレ東BIZ

Yame Tea
A big blue wave for Democrats, and two paths forward
Technology

A big blue wave for Democrats, and two paths forward

"The Democratic Party is back," declared House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist elected New York City's mayor, told supporters his victory represented "a mandate for a new kind of politics, a mandate for a city we can afford." The big picture: Even as Democrats celebrated late Tuesday, it was clear the results didn't settle the Democratic Party's civil war over the best way to move forward after its crushing losses in 2024. Progressive and moderate Democrats both emerged with genuine measures of victory Tuesday — and they're already wielding it as evidence that it's their side that should lead the party out of the wilderness in 2026 and 2028.Progressives in New York City and California fired up their base to elect Mamdani, and to redraw California's congressional map to help Democrats' push to flip five U.S. House seats next year. Centrist and establishment Democrats had clear victories in Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania: Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey won races for governor by double-digit margins after touting their law enforcement bona fides, promising to lower costs and running against Trump's management of the economy. In Virginia's attorney general race, Democrat Jay Jones — widely viewed as particularly vulnerable because of a texting scandal — led Republican incumbent Jason Miyares by 6 points with 95% of the vote counted.Virginians "chose pragmatism over partisanship" and the "Commonwealth over chaos," Spanberger — the first woman ever elected Virginia governor — told supporters in declaring victory.In Pennsylvania, Democrats carried three Supreme Court contests on an anti-Trump, pro-abortion rights message. Democrats' celebrations were even a split screen when it came to surrogates — many of whom happen to be potential 2028 presidential candidates: Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) were active campaigners in New York City and California.In Virginia and New Jersey, Spanberger and Sherrill deployed an army of more mainstream Democratic validators such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Zoom in: Progressives and moderates found common ground in their focus on affordability, but differed wildly on solutions. Mamdani called for freezing rent for millions of New York City residents, making city buses free, and opening city-run grocery stores.Spanberger and Sherrill blamed Trump's policies such as tariffs, federal layoffs and his "bad budget bill" while pledging to lower costs. "No sales tax increases, period," Sherrill promised in her closing TV ad. Between the lines: For the Democratic Party, the dueling narratives will continue into 2026 and 2028. Left-wing elected officials and strategists argue that the party has become so unpopular that it needs young outsiders like Mamdani running on an unapologetic progressive vision — a mirror image of what Trump and his allies did in the Republican Party over the past decade.Moderate and establishment Democrats argue that it was progressives who made Democrats unpopular in the first place, thanks to their embrace of slogans such as "defund the police." They say the party needs more center-left, practical candidates with appealing biographies. Former President Barack Obama subtly nodded at his party's divide by campaigning in New Jersey and Virginia — but not in New York City. He didn't endorse Mamdani, but did call him to offer to be a sounding board, The New York Times reported. Obama's team said the former president doesn't weigh in on municipal elections. The other side: Trump suggested in a Truth Social post that Republicans underperformed because of the federal government shutdown and because he wasn't on the ballot. He also reiterated his demand that fellow Republicans in the Senate break the filibuster so they wouldn't need any Democratic vote to fund the government and end the shutdown.

Alex Wong,Holly Otterbein
Endangered falcon found shot near Żebbuġ, Gozo
Technology

Endangered falcon found shot near Żebbuġ, Gozo

The falcon was seen with a maggot-infested wing fracture and could be nursed back to health. “Globally, the Saker Falcon is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, with fewer than 15,000 breeding pairs remaining, and populations continuing to decline across Europe and Central Asia,” BLM said. The NGO noted that despite heavy fines for those caught hunting the species, these are clearly not enough to deter those who want to kill such birds, adding that the incident puts Malta’s hunting in a negative light. “We would much rather have it the other way around, but as long as politicians continue regurgitating familiar rhetoric, that hunting fines are too high or that enforcement is somehow sufficient, these situations will persist.” Last May, government MPs Ramona Attard and Rosianne Cutajar backed calls for “fairer” penalties for illegal hunting.

Matthew Farrugia
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