Emerald Ambassador (35>years consecutively visiting Aruba)

The honoree was:

On behalf of the Aruba Tourism Authority, we would like to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation to the honoree for his continued visits to the “One Happy Island”.

This Saturday, July 27, the Food Truck Festival San Nicolas will take place. This year’s theme is “Food Security,” which aligns with the Ministry of Nature’s vision for the management of the primary sector.

The Ministry of Nature is pleased to be part of this initiative to continue promoting the potential of Aruba’s primary sector and improving food security.

The event promises to be a successful one, with Santa Rosa Aruba also participating this year to share information about local harvests and the nutritional value of local products.

On the same day in the morning, Santa Rosa Aruba will have their Pop-Up Market at their headquarters in Piedra Plat from 8 AM to 11 AM, where there will be fresh meat, fruits, and vegetables. The Food Truck Festival San Nicolas will start at 6 PM and last until 11 PM. Thus, it will be a day to support local farmers and sustain our local market in general.

The Ministry of Nature invites the entire community to visit these two events, which are free to enter, to enjoy a local culinary experience and a lively atmosphere. “Aruba’s future food security depends on our efforts today and the support we give our farmers,” said Minister Ursell Arends.

By STEVE LeBLANC

Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed a sweeping gun bill Thursday that supporters say builds on the state’s existing gun laws, including a crackdown on hard to trace “ghost guns,” while safeguarding the rights of gun owners.

The law is part of an effort by the state to respond to a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that citizens have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.

On ghost guns, the law toughens oversight for those who own privately made, unserialized firearms that are largely untraceable. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice reported recovering 25,785 ghost guns in domestic seizures.

The law expands the state’s extreme risk protective order law — also known as the red flag law — by authorizing health care professionals and others who interact regularly with people in crisis to petition a court to suspend a person’s right to possess or carry a gun to protect themselves and others.

The law also prohibits the possession of firearms by non-law-enforcement people at schools, polling locations and government buildings and imposes strict penalties for the possession of modification devices, such as Glock switches, which supporters of the law say convert an otherwise legal firearm into a fully automatic firearm.

“Massachusetts is proud of our strong gun laws, but there is always more work to be done to keep our communities safe from violence. This legislation updates our firearms laws in response to the Supreme Court’s misguided Bruen decision,” said Healey, a Democrat.

“It cracks down on ghost guns and 3D printed weapons, which I have long advocated for, enhances our ability to prevent guns from falling into dangerous hands, and invests in our communities to address the root causes of violence,” she said.

The law also requires those applying for a license to carry firearms to demonstrate a basic understanding of safety principles through a standardized exam and live fire training, and provides local licensing authorities with relevant mental health information of pending applicants.

District attorneys would be able to prosecute people who shoot at or near residential homes under the legislation, which would also ensure that dangerous people subject to harassment prevention orders no longer have access to firearms.

Gun rights advocates had criticized the Massachusetts Senate, which approved their version of the bill in February, for failing to hold a separate public hearing given the differences between their bill and the House bill approved last year.

The new law also expands the definition of “assault weapons” to include known assault weapons and other weapons that function like them with respect to certain features. It also prohibits possession, transfer or sale of “assault-style” firearms or large-capacity feeding devices.

The law also bans the issuing of a license to carry a machine gun except for firearms instructors and bona fide collectors, and criminalizes the possession of parts that are intended to make weapons more lethal by adding them to the machine gun statute.

Those parts include automatic parts, bump stocks, rapid-fire trigger activators and trigger modifiers.

The Supreme Court last month struck down a Trump-era ban on bump stocks,

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have their own bans on bump stocks that aren’t expected to be affected by the ruling.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHAEL BALSAMO

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed into law on Thursday a bill strengthening oversight of the crisis-plagued federal Bureau of Prisons after reporting by The Associated Press exposed systemic corruption, failures and abuse in the federal prison system.

The Federal Prison Oversight Act, which passed the Senate on July 10 and the House in May, establishes an independent ombudsman to field and investigate complaints in the wake of sexual assaults and other criminal misconduct by staff, chronic understaffing, escapes and high-profile deaths.

It also requires that the Justice Department’s inspector general conduct risk-based inspections of all 122 federal prison facilities, provide recommendations to address deficiencies and assign each facility a risk score. Higher-risk facilities would then receive more frequent inspections.

Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters lauded the bill as she testifying before Congress this week. But, she told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance that the agency will need tens of millions of dollars in additional funding “to effectively respond to the additional oversight and make that meaningful, long-lasting change.”

Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., introduced the oversight bill in 2022 while leading an investigation of the Bureau of Prisons as chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on investigations.

Ossoff and the bill’s two other sponsors, Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sens. Mike Braun, R-Ind., launched the Senate Bipartisan Prison Policy Working Group in February 2022 amid turmoil at the Bureau of Prisons, much of it uncovered by AP reporting. Reps. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., and Lucy McBath, D-Ga., backed the House version of the bill.

“The human rights crisis behind bars in the United States is a stain on America’s conscience,” Ossoff said in a statement thanking the bill’s other sponsors. “The United States Congress will no longer tolerate the ongoing and widespread abuse of those who are in Federal Bureau of Prisons’ custody.”

Under the legislation, an independent federal prison ombudsman would collect complaints via a secure hotline and online form and then investigate and report to the attorney general and Congress dangerous conditions affecting the health, safety, welfare and rights of inmates and staff.

Along with inspecting prison facilities, the legislation requires the Justice Department’s inspector general to report any findings and recommendations to Congress and the public. The Bureau of Prisons would then need to respond with a corrective action plan within 60 days.

Last year, Inspector General Michael Horowitz launched an unannounced inspection program of federal prison facilities that identified critical shortcomings, including staff shortages in health and education programs, crumbling infrastructure, and moldy and rotten food being served to inmates.

The oversight bill “recognizes the importance of our inspection program,” Horowitz said. “We look forward to working with Congress to expand its impact.”

Peters said the bill “really enhances” what the inspector general has been doing, while also enabling the agency to collect data and spot problems more quickly.

“We’ll be seeing more announced visits — more unannounced visits from the inspector general,” Peters told the House subcommittee. “And then I think the ombudsman position is very powerful as well, for it to have a place where individuals can bring forward complaints and somebody is there to ensure that those complaints are asked and answered.”

Biden signed a separate Ossoff bill into law in December 2022 requiring the Bureau of Prisons to fix broken surveillance cameras and install new ones.

An ongoing Associated Press investigation has uncovered deep, previously unreported flaws within the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department’s largest law enforcement agency with more than 30,000 employees, 158,000 inmates and an annual budget of about $8 billion.

AP reporting has revealed dozens of escapes, chronic violence, deaths and severe staffing shortages that have hampered responses to emergencies, including inmate assaults and suicides.

In April, the Bureau of Prisons said it was closing its women’s prison in Dublin, California, known as the “rape club,” giving up on attempts to reform the facility after an AP investigation exposed rampant staff-on-inmate sexual abuse.

Last year, two high-profile prisoners were attacked and another killed himself in federal prisons.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was stabbed 22 times by a fellow prisoner last November at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona. The assailant said he targeted Chauvin because of his notoriety for killing George Floyd, federal prosecutors said.

Disgraced former sports doctor Larry Nassar was stabbed in July 2023 at a federal penitentiary in Florida, and “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski killed himself at a federal medical center in June 2023.

By JOSH BOAK and CHRIS MEGERIAN

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters on Thursday that she’s “ready to debate Donald Trump.” She accused him of “backpedaling” away from a previous agreement for a debate hosted by ABC News on Sept. 10.

“I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on the debate stage,” she said after landing at Joint Base Andrews following a trip to Indiana and Texas.

The Sept. 10 debate was one of two debates that President Joe Biden and Trump had agreed on. The first one was hosted by CNN on June 27, but Biden has since dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris as his successor.

Trump has said he would prefer to shift the debate to Fox News, but he would be willing to face off with Harris more than once.

Harris did not respond to a question about having Fox News host a debate.

Alex Conant, a Republican consultant, said the debate could be “decisive.” “It’s the only time voters really tune in,” he said.

This year’s campaign has already shown the potential power of a debate. Biden’s disastrous performance on June 27 revived concerns that he was too old for a second term. His support within the Democratic Party crumbled, and he ended his reelection bid on Sunday.