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The Walt Disney Company has pulled the plug on a $1bn office complex in Orlando, following a warning from Disney leadership that billions of dollars in projects were on the line after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis escalated his feud with the company. The development scheduled for construction in the Orlando area was set to bring 2,000 jobs to the region, with 1,000 employees expected to be relocated from southern California. In an email to employees on 18 May, Disney’s theme park and consumer products chair Josh D’Amaro pointed to “changing business conditions” for the cancellation of the 60-acre Lake Nona Town Center project, according to The New York Times, which first reported the move. “I remain optimistic about the direction of our Walt Disney World business,” he added, noting that the company has still planned $17bn in projects over the next decade its Disney World campus. “I hope we’re able to,” he said. For years, Florida legislators and the governor’s office enjoyed a close relationship with the state’s largest taxpayers, among the state’s largest employers, which has wielded enormous political influence while bringing in billions of dollars to the state each year. Now, the company and DeSantis allies are suing one another, following a year-long feud over opposition to what opponents have called Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law that boiled over into political and legal battles that could shape the company’s business in the state. Moments after board appointed by Mr DeSantis voted to strip the company’s control of its Florida park, Disney filed a federal lawsuit against the governor and state officials alleging a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” for “expressing a political viewpoint.” The lawsuit follows the governor’s state takeover of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, now the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, made up of conservative activists and DeSantis loyalists, a move that followed Florida Republicans’ punitive measures against the company after its public opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay” law. Days later, the board voted to sue Disney in state court. In March, Disney slammed the governor’s “anti-business” approach to the company, which Mr DeSantis has accused of advancing a “woke agenda” while his administration targets LGBT+ people and their families with sweeping laws to control public school education, healthcare access and speech. The governor dissolved a decades-old municipal district that allowed Disney to control its own land use, zoning rules and public services, without putting a tax burden on Florida residents. In effect, Disney taxed itself to foot the district’s bill for its municipal needs. “Does the state want us to invest more, employ more people, and pay more taxes, or not?” Disney CEO Bob Iger said on a conference call with analysts last week. A statement from Disney said the company has decided to pull out of the new campus construction “given the considerable changes that have occurred since the announcement of this project, including new leadership and changing business conditions.” The “Parental Rights in Education Act” – what opponents have called “Don’t Say Gay” – prohibits instruction of “sexual orientation or gender identity” from kindergarten through the third grade and any such discussion “that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students” in other grades. The governor recently expanded the law to explicitly extend such restrictions to all grades. Critics have warned that the broadly written law threatens to freeze classroom speech involving LGBT+ people and issues, from civil rights history lessons to discussion of LGBT+ students, school staff and their families. Following passage of the Florida law, lawmakers across the US and in Congress have introduced similar legislation, including more than two dozen measures in current legislative sessions. Read More DeSantis v Disney: Why Florida’s governor is at war with the Mouse ‘We will not be erased’: Critics slam Ron DeSantis for unprecedented bills attacking LGBTQ+ people Penguin Random House sues Florida school district over ‘unconstitutional’ book bans Florida teacher under investigation for showing Disney movie with LGBT+ character speaks out

Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has issued his first public statement since the aborted march on Moscow, claiming he had never intended to overthrow Putin’s government. In his first public comments since Saturday’s dramatic events, he said the one-day mutiny was intended to be a protest at the ineffectual conduct of the war in Ukraine. Prigozhin spoke in an 11-minute audio message released on the Telegram messaging app. He denied trying to overturn the Russian state and said he acted in response to an attack on his force that killed some 30 of his fighters. “We started our march because of an injustice,” Prigozhin said in a recording that gave details about where he is or what his future plans are. A festering feud between Prigozhin and Russia’s military brass erupted on Saturday into a mutiny that saw the mercenaries leave Ukraine to seize a military headquarters in a southern Russian city and roll seemingly unopposed for hundreds of miles toward Moscow, before turning around after less than 24 hours. The Kremlin said it had made a deal for Prigozhin to move to Belarus and receive amnesty, along with his soldiers. There was no confirmation of his whereabouts Monday, although he was reportedly seen at a hotel in the Belarusian capital, Minsk. Russian media reported a criminal probe against Prigozhin continued, and some lawmakers called for his head. In a return to at least superficial normality, Moscow’s mayor announced an end to the “counterterrorism regime” imposed on the capital, when troops and armored vehicles set up checkpoints on the outskirts and authorities tore up roads leading into the city. Meanwhile, Moscow showed a video of defence minister Sergei Shoigu at a military headquarters in Ukraine. It was unclear when it was flmed.Prigozhin’s rift with the military dates back years, to Russia’s intervention in Syria, where Wagner forces also were active. Though the Prigozhin mutiny was brief, it was not bloodless. Several military helicopters and a military communications plane were shot down by Wagner forces, killing at least 15. Prigozhin denied there were any casualties on his side, but media reports indicated the airstrikes hit some Wagner vehicles, and messaging app channels featured images of the damage. Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary Who is Yevgeny Prigozhin? Wagner rebellion presents unique opportunity for Ukraine, experts say Kremlin denies Putin has fled Moscow as Russia president’s plane ‘disappears’

LINCOLNSHIRE, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 6, 2023--

After a live worm was found wriggling around in an Australian woman’s brain recently, you could be forgiven for thanking your lucky stars you don’t have a similar parasite living inside you. But it turns out the chances are much more likely than you might think. More than 1 billion people are thought to have threadworms, a type of invertebrate also known as the pinworm, as per a 2019 study by NCBI. Threadworms grow to around 1cm in length and are specific to human hosts. They infect the small intestine, make your bottom feel itchy and can be passed from person to person. They are a common type of infection in the UK, particularly in children under the age of 10. Threadworms are white and look like small pieces of thread – they are usually spotted in people’s poo. According to the NHS website, they can make people irritable and cause them to wake up at night. When things get really bad, they can cause weight loss. The woman in Australia’s worm, by contrast, was found in her brain, and surgeons needed to get it out manually. “Everyone [in] that operating theatre got the shock of their life when [the surgeon] took some forceps to pick up an abnormality and the abnormality turned out to be a wriggling, live 8cm light red worm," said infectious diseases doctor Sanjaya Senanayake, according to the BBC. If you get threadworms, you won’t need to have brain surgery, fortunately. You can buy medicine (mebendazole) for threadworms from pharmacies, according to NHS online. This is usually a chewable tablet or liquid you swallow. The medicine kills the threadworms, but it does not kill the eggs. Eggs can live for up to 2 weeks outside the body. There are other types of worms you can catch, however. Tapeworms, roundworms and hookworms are all relatively common parasites that you can catch from eating raw or undercooked meat. They can also be caught from inadvertently touching infected poo. Roundworms look more like earthworms, tapeworms are long, pale yellow and flat and hookworms, somewhat horrifically, cause a red, worm-shaped rash beneath the skin. Vincent Ho, associate professor and clinical academic gastroenterologist at Western Sydney University in Australia, said that there are four things you can do to avoid these nasty little critters. “Avoid undercooked or raw pork. Freezing meat first may reduce risks (though home freezers may not get cold enough) and it must be cooked to a high internal temperature. Avoid pork if you are travelling in places with poor sanitation,” he said in an article for The Conversation. “Avoid jumping or diving into warm fresh bodies of water, especially if they are known to carry Naegleria fowleri. Although only a handful of cases are reported each year, you should assume it’s present. “Practise good hand hygiene to reduce the risk of rare and common infections. That means washing hands thoroughly and often, using soap, scrubbing for at least 20 seconds, rinsing and drying well. Clip and clean under fingernails regularly. “To avoid soil-borne parasites, wear shoes outside, especially in rural and remote regions, wash shoes and leave them outside.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.