• Police seek suspects in deadly birthday party shooting
  • Lawmakers launch inquires into U.S. boat strike
  • Nov. 29, 2025, 10:07 PM EST / Updated Nov. 30, 2025,…
  • Mark Kelly says troops ‘can tell’ what orders…

Be that!

contact@bethat.ne.com

 

Be That ! Menu   ≡ ╳
  • Home
  • Travel
  • Culture
  • Lifestyle
  • Sport
  • Contact Us
  • Politics Politics
☰

Be that!

Speaker Johnson: This Could Become 'Longest Shutdown' Ever

admin - Latest News - October 14, 2025
admin
25 views 30 secs 0 Comments



House Speaker Mike Johnson is now warning the government shutdown could become “one of the longest shutdowns in American history,” insisting Republicans have nothing to negotiate until Democrats relent on their demand to extended healthcare subsidies. It comes as the future of thousands of federal workers hanging in the balance. NBC’s Ryan Nobles reports for TODAY.



Source link

TAGS:
PREVIOUS
SpaceX launches 11th Starship test flight
NEXT
Head of Instagram Details Revamped Restrictions, Rating System
Related Post
October 27, 2025
Hurricane Hunters film inside Hurricane Melissa's eye
November 28, 2025
Nov. 28, 2025, 6:00 PM ESTBy Freddie Clayton and Fiona DayThe rolling plains of Kenya’s Maasai Mara and the millions of animals that live there face a shiny new intrusion: a gleaming Ritz-Carlton safari camp.With private plunge pools, butler service and panoramic views commanding more than $5,000 a night, the 20-hectare lodge has become a luxury lightning rod for controversy.Leaders of the Maasai — an ethnic group of traditionally nomadic herders with ancestral ties to the area — and conservationists warn the new tourist destination threatens a migration corridor vital to the movement of vast numbers of animals and have filed a lawsuit to halt its operations.What’s at stake, they argue, is not just a new lodge, but the accelerating pressures of tourism on wildlife, biodiversity and the very spectacle that draws these tourists in the first place. The camp opened on Aug. 15 during the height of the Great Migration, where millions of wildebeest, zebras and other grazing animals move back and forth between the Serengeti plains in Tanzania and the Maasai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) in Kenya, a process that researchers say allows animals to find food and water and maintain genetic diversity among herds.The Ritz-Carlton, Masai Mara Safari Camp. The rapid growth in lodges and camps has sometimes clashed with conservation efforts.Jiri Lizler / Marriott InternationalTourists have long flocked to the savannah by the hundreds of thousands, hoping to witness one of the largest movements of mammals in the world, as herds cross rivers and plains teeming with predators.But the new camp, which boasts “front-row seats to one of the world’s greatest natural wonders” on its website, may threaten the migration that visitors come to witness, conservations and Maasai leaders say. The Ritz-Carlton camp, on a bend in the Sand River, sits on “one of the most favored corridors for these animals,” Maasai elder Meitamei Olol Dapash told NBC News in an interview Sunday.“Any guide will tell you, that is the crossing they use,” said Dapash, who filed a lawsuit in August in a Kenyan court against Ritz-Carlton’s owner, Marriott International, the world’s largest hotel chain, as well as the project’s local owner and operator, Lazizi Mara Limited, and Kenyan authorities.Dapash, executive director of the Institute for Maasai Education, Research and Conservation (MERC), who has a PhD in Sustainability Education from Prescott College in Arizona, alleges in the lawsuit that the 20-suite camp obstructs the crucial migration corridor and is asking the court to restore the land to its original condition.He told NBC News in an interview there had been instances of wildebeest turning back to avoid the camp and that an elephant was seen struggling to find a path across the river after using the location for more than a decade.Female lions with cubs in Masai Mara, Kenya.Henrik Karlsson / Getty Images file“Attachment to the land and to the wildlife exists up to this very day,” Dapash said, adding that the Maasai had seen populations dwindling. The new camp, he added, “was the last straw for us, we just didn’t want to let this happen.”The Kenya Wildlife Service government agency pushed back at claims the lodge has impacted wildebeest migration, citing monitoring data that it says shows it does not “fall within, obstruct, or interfere with any wildebeest migration corridors” and adding that migrating wildebeest “are using the entire breadth of the Kenya-Tanzania border.”It said that “all ecological, environmental and regulatory requirements were thoroughly met and validated.”Marriott International told NBC News that the development underwent an environmental impact assessment (EIA) “in full compliance with” Kenya’s environmental protections.The company said it is committed to “the principles of responsible tourism” but declined to comment on Dapash’s claims that the Ritz-Carlton blocked a key route for local wildlife or its own steps to mitigate the construction’s impact, saying these were matters for Narok County, which manages the reserve on the Maasai’s behalf.Narok County did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment. In court documents seen by NBC News, the county claims that the safari camp complies with the Maasai Mara Management Plan, which imposes a moratorium on new developments amid concerns that poorly regulated tourism was stifling wildlife migration and threatening the reserve’s ecosystem.Lazizi Mara Limited said the moratorium is part of the case before the court, adding: “We wouldn’t want to comment on issues that are pending determination.”Dapash told NBC News that he had “no issue with business, but this is not just about hotel, it is about the long-term survival of the game reserve.” “We feel like we are losing the land, we are losing the wildlife,” he said.The lawsuit comes amid mounting concerns about the health of the 580-square-mile reserve, where tourist numbers have nearly tripled in recent decades. The Maasai Mara National Reserve reported over 300,000 tourists in 2023. In 1980, total visitor entry was 114,000. Tourism in the Mara generates an estimated $20 million annually and thousands more indirectly, according to the reserve. In 2023, tourism across the country contributed around 7% of Kenya’s gross domestic product, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.But the rapid growth in lodges and camps has sometimes clashed with conservation efforts. “A hotel is never just a hotel,” Dr. Chloe Buiting, a vet and wildlife researcher working in the Maasai Mara, said in an interview. “It’s infrastructure, it’s roads, it’s changes to the water and the resources and the use of land.”Seasonal variation in the availability and quality of food forces animals to move around, said Joseph Ogutu, a Kenyan researcher at the University of Hohenheim in Germany. But he said developments like the Ritz-Carlton are having “a negative effect on migration, because most of these facilities are close to rivers where animals either drink water or breed or seek refuge.”Dapash’s cause has also found support among experts and tourism groups.Grant Hopcraft, a professor of conservation ecology at the University of Glasgow, who has been collaring migratory wildebeest in the Serengeti-Mara since 1999, presented maps and data to the court in October showing “regular cross-border movement of wildebeest” at the location of the lodge, according to his affidavit.RIDE International, a U.S.-based nonprofit providing cultural exchanges and immersive tours in East Africa, has also thrown its support behind Dapash’s lawsuit.The Mara has been suffering for a long time, said Riley Jon Blackwell, the company’s executive director, with “large hotel chains coming in and trying to service the luxury guests who command to see the best of the best for wildlife.”The Ritz-Carlton safari camp was “not surprising,” he added in an interview. “It’s just kind of a culmination of a long time, of a direction of things leading this way.”The camp holds a 2.2-star rating on Google Reviews, with many posters criticizing its environmental impact. Others have praised their stay at the park. A court is scheduled to hear the case in December.If Dapash is successful with his lawsuit, Buiting said it could “set a very interesting precedent” for future developments in the reserve.“From a legal perspective, this could actually be groundbreaking, a turning point,” she added.Freddie ClaytonFreddie Clayton is a freelance journalist based in London. Fiona DayFiona Day is a social news editor for NBC News based in London.Reuters contributed.
October 13, 2025
Oct. 13, 2025, 10:32 AM EDTBy Rob WileSix months into President Donald Trump’s unprecedented gambit to impose sizable tariffs on imports, U.S. consumers are already shouldering as much as 55% of their costs, according to a new report from Goldman Sachs analysts.And with new tariffs likely on the way, the cost burden could rise even higher, they said. The findings, released Sunday, suggest U.S. consumers will continue to struggle with high prices — something Trump had promised to address in the run-up to his re-election. While inflation rates have come down from the post-Covid peak, they have remained stuck above levels economists consider healthy, causing consumers and businesses alike to continue to report feeling burdened by price increases. Over the past six months, Trump has imposed tariffs on copper, steel, aluminum, and some automobiles and auto parts. He has also levied country-specific tariff rates of as much as 28% on China and 16% on much of the rest of the world, according to the Yale Budget Lab. Partially as a result, consumer prices tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics have increased every month since April, when Trump made his “Liberation Day” speech announcing the new duties. As of August, the BLS’ benchmark Consumer Price Index (CPI) stood at 2.93%. September CPI data has been delayed due to the government shutdown, now in its 13th day, and is now slated to be released later this month. A separate inflation measure preferred by the Federal Reserve has likewise continued to climb, rising to 2.7% for August — above the central bank’s 2% target. In August, Trump assailed an initial Goldman Sachs estimate that said consumers could bear as much as 67% of the cost of tariffs. A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Monday. The Goldman analysts arrived at their estimate of the tariffs’ burden on consumers by comparing how much consumer prices for tariffed products have deviated from previous trends. The burden is actually less than the estimated pass-through that occurred during the trade war Trump set off during his first term in 2018. In that period, evidence suggests foreign exporters did not bear any significant share of the tariff costs at the time, meaning consumers were shouldering even more of a burden.This time, exporters are bearing some cost, along with U.S. businesses, who may actually be sparing consumers even worse price increases for the moment. American companies may be waiting to see how the U.S. Supreme Court rules on tariffs, the Goldman analysts said. Businesses also might have accumulated inventory in advance of the tariffs setting in, allowing them to hold off on raising their retail prices more significantly. The nation’s highest court is set to hear opening arguments in the tariff case Nov. 5.Still, the analysts estimate tariffs have added 0.44% to the Fed’s preferred inflation measure. That figure could rise to as much as 0.6% if Trump makes good on recent threats to impose tariffs on products such as furniture and kitchen cabinets. Those were set to take effect Tuesday. In this scenario, the tariffs’ cost burden borne by consumers could rise to 70%. The analysts’ latest estimate does not take into account Trump’s threat Friday to double the tariffs on China. On Monday, Trump administration officials sought to reassure markets that they did not seek to reignite tensions with America’s largest overseas trading partnerIf those tariffs were to take effect, the impact would be significant, the analysts said. “We are not assuming any changes to tariff rates on imports from China, but events in recent days suggest large risks,” they wrote.Rob WileRob Wile is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist covering breaking business stories for NBCNews.com.
October 30, 2025
How Assemblies of God churches allegedly shielded predators as they abused children
Comments are closed.
Scroll To Top
  • Home
  • Travel
  • Culture
  • Lifestyle
  • Sport
  • Contact Us
  • Politics
© Copyright 2025 - Be That ! . All Rights Reserved