residents

Feb. 26 (UPI) — A new Kansas law requiring transgender residents’ state-issued identification to reflect their “sex at birth” went into effect Thursday, immediately invalidating hundreds of driver’s licenses and birth certificates.

KCUR-TV in Kansas City, Kan., reported that people began receiving notices this week from the Kansas Department of Revenue instructing them to request new identification cards and birth certificates if they had ever updated the gender marker on the documents.

The requirement is a result of legislation known as SD 244 going into effect Thursday. It bans transgender people from using bathrooms that match their gender identity. It also gives citizens the ability to sue transgender people for $1,000 if they encounter them breaking that law.

Other states ban transgender people from changing the gender marker on their IDs, but Kansas’ new law also nullifies any changes previously made legally.

State Rep. Abi Boatman, a transgender woman, shared a copy of the KDOR letter dated Monday on Facebook on Wednesday. It said those receiving the letter will have their identification records nullified.

“Additionally, please note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials,” the letter reads. “This means that once the law is officially enacted, your current credential will be invalid immediately, and you may be subject to additional penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential.”

In a separate Facebook post Monday, Boatman said each person who must change their license will have to pay a $26 fee for a standard license.

“Be sure to thank your Republican representatives for not only cancelling the driver’s licenses of 1,700 transgender Kansans but also making them pay for a new one,” she wrote.

“It’s a wild time when Kansas can erase human beings while simultaneously making $45,000 off of them.”

Kansas’ Republican-majority Legislature used a process known as “gut and go” to pass SB 244 earlier this month, The Guardian reported. It allowed lawmakers to replace the text of one bill with entirely new language and to bypass committee review and expedite the voting process.

Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the bill, calling it “poorly drafted legislation,” but the Legislature overrode her veto with a supermajority vote.

Attorney General Kris Kobach, who supported SB 244, said in a Facebook post about the signing of the legislation that he was “thankful for Kansas lawmakers who stand firm on this.”

“No more confusion on official IDs — biology matters, and truth wins.”

After the passage, Anthony Alvarez, who works for Loud Light Civic Action and is a transgender man, said the new law deputizes citizens and gives them financial incentive to turn against transgender Kansans.

“Every aspect of my public life will be subject to policing — from when I show my ID to vote or go to the bank to when I want to visit my friends in their dorm room or when I was my hands before I eat,” he said in a statement shared by the American Civil Liberties Union in Kansas.

The ACLU said it plans to challenge the law in court.

Official Fadi al-Qassem says all residents have left al-Hol camp, which long housed relatives of alleged ISIL (ISIS) members.

Syrian authorities say they have fully evacuated and shut down a remote camp that once kept thousands of relatives of alleged members of the armed group ISIL (ISIS).

The last residents were sent out in a convoy Sunday morning, according to Fadi al-Qassem, the Syrian government official overseeing the camp.

“All Syrian and non-Syrian families were relocated,” al-Qassem told Agence France-Presse.

Al-Hol, located in a desert region of the northeastern Hasakah province, had long kept huge numbers of relatives of suspected ISIL fighters.

At its peak in 2019, the camp held some 73,000 people. Last month, there were about 24,000 residents, mostly Syrians but also Iraqis and more than 6,000 other foreigners of around 40 nationalities.

While the camp’s residents were not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, they had been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility for years.

Last month, Syria’s government took control of the camp from Kurdish authorities, as Damascus extended its reach across northeastern Syria.

Since then, thousands of its detainees, including family members of suspected ISIL members, have left for unknown destinations. Hundreds have been sent to the Akhtarin camp in Aleppo province, while others have been repatriated to Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor based in the United Kingdom, reported an unspecified number of residents “left the camp individually, without waiting for the organised convoys”. Sources on the ground told Al Jazeera many Syrian nationals left al-Hol for their hometowns, while many of the foreigners travelled west to government strongholds of Idlib or Aleppo governorates.

Al-Qassem said residents who have been relocated are children and women who will “need support for their reintegration”.

The future of the smaller Roj camp in northeastern Syria, which also houses relatives of alleged ISIL members but remains under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), remains to be seen.

Most of its inhabitants are foreigners whose home countries have largely refused to receive them.

Syrian authorities turned back buses carrying 34 Australian women and children on February 16 after they left the Roj camp, headed toward Damascus with plans to travel on to Australia. Australian authorities later said they would not repatriate the families.

“We have no sympathy, frankly, for people who travelled overseas in order to participate in what was an attempt to establish a caliphate to undermine and destroy our way of life,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, explaining his country’s stance.

While it is “unfortunate” that children have been affected, Australia is “not providing any support”, Albanese added.

Connor Cipolla, an Eaton wildfire survivor, last year praised Southern California Edison’s plan of burying more than 60 miles of electric lines in Altadena as it rebuilds to reduce the risk of fire.

Then he learned he would have to pay $20,000 to $40,000 to connect his home, which was damaged by smoke and ash, to Edison’s new underground line. A nearby neighbor received an estimate for $30,000, he said.

“Residents are so angry,” Cipolla said. “We were completely blindsided.”

Other residents have tracked the wooden stakes Edison workers put up, showing where crews will dig. They’ve found dozens of places where deep trenches are planned under oak and pine trees that survived the fire. In addition to the added costs they face, they fear many trees will die as crews cut their roots.

“The damage is being done now and it’s irreversible,” homeowner Robert Steller said, pointing Maiden Lane to where an Edison crew was working.

For a week, Steller, who lost his home in the fire, parked his Toyota 4Runner over a recently dug trench. He said he was trying to block Edison’s crew from burying a large transformer between two towering deodar cedar trees. The work would “be downright fatal” to the decades-old trees, he said.

Altadena resident Robert Steller stands in front of his Toyota 4Runner that he parked strategically to prevent a Southern California Edison crew from digging too close to two towering cedar trees.

(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)

The buried lines are an upgrade that will make Altadena’s electrical grid safer and more reliable, Edison says, and it also will lower the risk that the company would have to black out Altadena neighborhoods during dangerous Santa Ana winds to prevent fires.

Brandon Tolentino, an Edison vice president, said the company was trying to find government or charity funding to help homeowners pay to connect to the buried lines. In the meantime, he said, Edison decided to allow owners of homes that survived the fire to keep their overhead connections until financial help was available.

Tolentino added that the company planned meetings to listen to residents’ concerns, including about the trees. He said crews were trained to stop work when they find tree roots and switch from using a backhoe to digging by hand to protect them.

“We’re minimizing the impact on the trees as we [put lines] underground or do any work in Altadena,” he said.

Although placing cables underground is a fire prevention measure, consumer advocates point out it’s not the most cost-effective step Edison can take to reduce the risk.

Undergrounding electric wires can cost more than $6 million per mile, according to the state Public Utilities Commission, far more than building overhead wires.

Because utility shareholders put up part of the money needed to pay for burying the lines, the expensive work means they will earn more profit. Last year, the commission agreed Edison investors could earn an annual return of 10.03% on that money.

Edison said in April it would spend as much as $925 million to underground and rebuild its grid in Altadena and Malibu, where the Palisades fire caused devastation. That amount of construction spending will earn Edison and its shareholders more than $70 million in profit before taxes — an amount billed to electric customers — in the first year, according to calculations by Mark Ellis, the former chief economist for Sempra, the parent company of Southern California Gas and San Diego Gas & Electric.

That annual return will continue over the decades while slowly decreasing each year as the assets are depreciated, Ellis said.

“They’re making a nice profit on this,” he said.

Tolentino said the company wasn’t doing the work to profit.

“The primary reason for undergrounding is the wildfire mitigation,” he said. “Our focus is supporting the community as they rebuild.”

It’s unclear if the Eaton fire would have been less disastrous if Altadena’s neighborhood power lines had been buried. The blaze ignited under Edison’s towering transmission lines that run down the mountainside in Eaton Canyon. Those lines carry bulk power through Edison’s territory. The power lines being put underground are the smaller distribution lines, which carry power to homes.

A power line outside the home of Altadena resident Connor Cipolla.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

The investigation into the fire’s cause has not yet been released. Edison says a leading theory is that one of the Eaton Canyon transmission lines, which hadn’t carried power for 50 years, might have briefly reenergized, sparking the blaze. The fire killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,000 homes, businesses and other structures.

Edison said it has no plans to bury those transmission lines.

The high cost of undergrounding has become a contentious issue in Sacramento because, under state rules, most or all of it is billed to all customers of the utility.

Before the Eaton fire, Edison won praise from consumer advocates by installing insulated overhead wires that sharply cut the risk of the lines sparking a fire for a fraction of the cost. Since 2019, the company has installed more than 6,800 miles of the insulated wires.

“A dollar spent reconductoring with covered conductor provides … over four times as much value in wildfire risk mitigation as a dollar spent on underground conversion,” Edison said in testimony before the utilities commission in 2018.

By comparison, Pacific Gas & Electric has relied more on undergrounding its lines to reduce the risk of fire, pushing up customer utility bills. Now Edison has shifted to follow PG&E’s example.

Mark Toney, executive director of the the Utility Reform Network, a consumer group in San Francisco, said his staff estimates Edison spends $4 million per mile to underground wires compared with $800,000 per mile for installing insulated lines.

By burying more lines, customer bills and Edison’s profits could soar, Toney said.

“Five times the cost is equal to five times the profit,” he said.

Last spring, Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, told Gov. Gavin Newsom about the company’s undergrounding plans in a letter. Pizarro wrote that rules at the utility commission would require Altadena and Malibu homeowners to pay to underground the electric wire from their property line to the panel on their house. He estimated it would cost $8,000 to $10,000 for each home.

Residents who need to dig long trenches may pay far more than that, said Cipolla, who is a member of the Altadena Town Council.

An oak tree stands tall in an area impacted by the Eaton fires. Homeowners worry such trees could be at risk in the undergrounding work.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

Last week, Cipolla showed a reporter the electrical panel on the back of his house, which is many yards away from where he needs to connect to Edison’s line. The company also initially wanted him to dig up the driveway he poured seven years ago, he said. Edison later agreed to a location that avoids the driveway.

Tolentino said Edison’s crews were working with homeowners concerned about the company’s planned locations for the buried lines.

“We understand it is a big cost and we’re looking at different sources to help them,” he said.

At the same time, some residents are fuming that, despite the undergrounding work, most of the town’s neighborhoods still will have overhead telecommunications lines. In other areas of the state, the telecommunications companies have worked with the electric utilities to bury all the lines, eliminating the visual clutter.

So far, the telecom companies have agreed to underground only a fraction of their lines in Altadena, Tolentino said.

Cipolla said Edison executives told him they eventually plan to chop off the top of new utility poles the company installed after the fire, leaving the lower portion that holds the telecom lines.

“There is no beautification aspect to it whatsoever,” Cipolla said.

As for the trees, Steller and other residents are asking Edison to adjust its construction map to avoid digging near those that remain after the fire. Altadena lost more than half of its tree cover in the blaze and as crews cleared lots of debris.

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1. A pedestrian walks past Christmas Tree lane in Altadena. Christmas Tree Lane was officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. 2. A “We Love Altadena” sign hangs from a shrub on Christmas Tree Lane. 3. Parts of a chopped down tree rest on a street curb in Altadena.

Wynne Wilson, a fire survivor and co-founder of Altadena Green, pointed out that the lot across the street from the giant cedar trees on Maiden Lane has no vegetation, making it a better place for Edison’s transformer.

“This is needless,” Wilson said. “People are dealing with so much. Is Edison thinking we won’t fight over this?”

Carolyn Hove, raising her voice to be heard over the crew operating a jackhammer in front of her home, asked: “How much more are we supposed to go through?”

Hove said she doesn’t blame the crews of subcontractors the utility hired, but Edison’s management.

“It’s bad enough our community was decimated by a fire Edison started,” she said. “We’re still very traumatized, and then to have this happen.”

Witnesses say the motorcycle riding gunmen attacked three communities in northern Nigeria, killing and abducting dozens.

Gunmen on motorcycles have rampaged through three villages in northern Nigeria, killing at least 32 people and abducting several more, according to witnesses and local police.

The raids on Saturday in the Borgu area of Niger State came amid a complex security crisis in northern Nigeria, featuring armed groups affiliated with ISIL (ISIS) as well as gangs that abduct people for ransom money.

Wasiu Abiodun, ‌the Niger State police spokesperson, confirmed the attack in one of the villages.

“Suspected bandits invaded Tunga-Makeri village,” he said. “Six persons lost their lives, some houses were also set ablaze, and a yet-to-be ascertained number of persons were abducted.”

He added that the assailants had moved on to Konkoso village, while details of other attacks remained unclear.

Jeremiah Timothy, a resident of Konkoso, told the Reuters news agency that the attack on ⁠his village began in the early hours with sporadic gunfire.

“At least 26 people were killed so far in the village after they set the police station ablaze,” said Timothy, adding that the ⁠attackers entered Konkoso around 6am (05:00 GMT), shooting indiscriminately.

He said residents heard military jets flying overhead.

Abdullahi Adamu, another resident of Konkoso, said 26 people were killed. “They were operating freely without the presence of any security,” he told The Associated Press news agency.

The AFP news agency, citing an unnamed humanitarian source, put the death toll in Konkoso at 38. The source said the victims were shot dead or had their throats slit.

Most of the homes in the village were burned down, and apart from those already counted as dead, “other bodies are being recovered”, the source told AFP.

The agency cited a Konkoso resident as saying that the gunmen had killed his nephew and abducted four women.

“After Konkoso, they went to Pissa, where they set a police station on fire and killed one person.”

“At the moment, many people are missing,” he said.

The AP also reported an attack in Pissa, without providing details.

The attacks in Niger State followed a deadly attack by armed fighters earlier this month in neighbouring Kwara and Katsina states that killed nearly 200 people.

The border between Niger and Kwara states is home to the Kainji Forest, a known haven for bandits and fighters, including from the armed group Boko Haram. Last October, the al-Qaeda affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) also claimed responsibility for its first attack on Nigerian soil, near Woro, in Kwara State.

Religious and community leaders from the Borgu area in Niger State last week called on President Bola Tinubu to establish a military base in the area to put an end to the recurring attacks, Nigerian media reported.

Nigeria is also under pressure to restore security since United States President Donald Trump accused ‌it last year of failing to protect Christians.

Authorities, however, denied that there is systematic persecution of Christians, while independent experts say Nigeria’s security crises kill both Christians and Muslims, often without distinction.

Nigeria’s government, meanwhile, has stepped up cooperation with Washington to improve security, and in December, the US military carried out air strikes in Sokoto State, targeting what Washington said were armed fighters.

The four-mile trail from the village of Haworth to Top Withens in West Yorkshire is well trodden; numerous footprints squelched into the boggy ground by those seeking the view said to have inspired the setting for Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights. The landscape rolls in desolate waves of brown bracken. A lone tree punctuates the scene. It’s bleakly, hauntingly beautiful.

With the release of Emerald Fennell’s new film of the Gothic masterpiece starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi next week, Haworth and many of the filming locations in the Yorkshire Dales national park, where the book is set, are braced for a slew of visitors.

The local residents, though, seem distinctly unfazed by the attention.

“We’re used to crowds,” shrugs Craig Verity, the landlord at the Kings Arms, a pub at the top of Haworth’s steep cobbled Main Street, just steps from the parsonage where the Brontës were raised.

Brontë country has been milking the connection for decades. On a wall in the Kings Arms, a board promotes a selection of Bridgehouse cask ales named Charlotte, Anne, Emily and Branwell, the latter being the lesser-known Brontë brother.

In the surrounding streets, there’s the Brontë Hotel and the Brontë Bar and Restaurant, as well as – somewhat tenuously – Brontë Balti.

The Brontë Parsonage, where the sisters lived, wrote and – in Emily and Charlotte’s case – died, is now a museum housing artefacts, personal items and manuscripts, as well as hosting events such as workshops, talks and screenings of adaptations of the books. It draws around 75,000 visitors annually, a number almost sure to rise this year; a screening of 1992’s Wuthering Heights planned for 12 February has already sold out.

Scenes from this version, starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliet Binoche, were filmed at East Riddlesden Hall, about five miles from Haworth. The exterior of the 17th-century National Trust property also featured in the 2009 mini-series as Wuthering Heights itself, as well as in the now-lost 1920 silent version.

The 1939 Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon film was shot in California and on set in Hollywood.

“We only know about the use of the property because of a January 1921 article in the Shipley Times and Express,” said Sophie Fawcett, a senior marketing and communications officer with the National Trust.

Coinciding with the release of Fennell’s new adaptation, East Riddlesden Hall will be holding a Lights, Camera, Brontë exhibition, which will showcase, for instance, the “vast oak dresser” thought to have inspired the one described in the opening pages of the book. It came originally from Ponden Hall – about an hour’s walk from Haworth and now a bed and breakfast – to which the sisters were frequent visitors.

One room here features a box bed and window, likely to have inspired the scene in which the ghost of Cathy appears to a terrified Lockwood.

For this new film, the cast stayed at Simonstone Hall, a sumptuous country house hotel in Yorkshire Dales. It’s a 20-minute drive from here to Swaledale, where many of the scenes were shot.

“They were lovely people, and brilliantly undemanding,” said the owner, Jake Dinsdale, noting that Robbie had since been back for a stay with her husband. “Although they’d booked out all 20 rooms, our restaurant was still open to the public, and the cast enjoyed being around the firepit to toast s’mores, or sitting down to a roast dinner or afternoon tea.”

His own attitude is equally relaxed. “I don’t know what the film will do,” he said. “It could all be a flash in the pan, and that’s fine. If it sticks, that’s also great. What I do know is that I won’t be renaming any rooms as ‘The Jacob Elordi Room’ or ‘The Heathcliff Room’.

“Commercial naffness isn’t for us – I’ll just be happy if guests understand why so many people love the Yorkshire Dales.”

In the meantime, Simonstone Hall is offering a Wuthering Heights Romantic Getaway package until 13 March: two nights for £738 per couple, including champagne on arrival, candlelit dinners, bedtime brandy and truffles, leisurely breakfasts and late checkout. Copies of the novel are also available in the gift shop.

Tony Watson, head of economy and tourism for North Yorkshire council, said: “The area has featured in so many films and series; we’re experienced in managing that. Post-Covid, we were already seeing more younger people getting outdoors and exploring the county, and this demographic will doubtless grow as the film showcases the area’s beauty and authenticity.

“We’ll have to wait until the release to see whether there’s some iconic shot that people want to replicate. If there is, hopefully it will be somewhere like Aysgarth Falls, which has all of the necessary infrastructure in place – otherwise, we’ll need to suggest alternatives that don’t make mountain rescue unhappy.”

Back at The Kings Arms, Jack Greatrex, who lives in the area, is sanguine. “The Brontë sisters shaped this village for future generations, and for lovers of landscape and literature,” he said. “This film could mean that they continue to do so.”

Whatever effect the new film has, said Watson, they’re ready for it. “I’m the luckiest head of tourism imaginable – the film is going to do my job for me.”