02062025 BUSINESS by tribune242

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2025

Grand Lucayan facing ‘chilly’ $532k demand

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor

THE Grand Lucayan is facing a demand for $532,282 plus loss of income over accusations it left two rented AC chillers “inoperable” due to the poor quality of its water supply.

Trane US, the Florida-based entity that supplied the now “damaged” equipment, in a February 3, 2025, lawsuit ﬁled in the federal courts is asserting that the Bahamian taxpayerowned resort breached their rental agreement by failing to properly install and maintain the chillers, plus return them “in good working condition”.

The Grand Bahama-based resort, which is currently the subject of negotiations to sell it to a $10bn Miami-based developer is also accused of failing to pay for either repairs to the chillers or their replacement. As a result, Trane is also claiming for loss of income due to its inability to lease them to other clients. And it is alleging that the damage to the chillers was caused by the Grand Lucayan using a water supply whose salinity/chloride levels were more than 12 times’ higher than the recommended amount. Julian Russell,

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

THE Government was yesterday urged to modify the “crippling” and “onerous” requirement for companies and IBCs to declare all their Bahamas-based real estate holdings by February 15.

Attorneys, whose law firms act as registered offices and agents for firms incorporated under the Companies Act as well as International Business Companies (IBCs), told Tribune Business that the newly-introduced ‘real property declaration’ represents an “incredibly burdensome obligation” that has left both themselves and their clients struggling to comply by the looming deadline.

Pointing out that this latest compliance-related deadline, following so swiftly behind Business Licence returns and January’s VAT ﬁlings, is also occurring at a time when businesses are dealing with the likes of economic substance

and tax information exchange ﬁling, they all voiced fears that having to ﬁll-out a 16-page property declaration for every company is simply taking bureaucracy and ‘red tape’ to new heights.

Andrew O’Brien, the Glinton, Sweeting & O’Brien attorney and partner, told this newspaper that while the private sector backed the Government’s drive to crack down on VAT evasion involving high-value real estate sales it feels there better ways to achieve this objective without further undermining

the country’s ease of doing business.

He disclosed that both the Bahamas Financial Services Board (BFSB) and Bahamas Bar Association are working to devise alternatives to the ‘real property declaration’, one of which could involve setting a threshold or ﬂoor - say $2m - for the value of transactions that need to be reported to the Department of Inland Revenue. Only real estate deals above this limit would have to be reported.

Adrian White, the Opposition MP for St Anne’s and an attorney by profession,

described the 16-page ‘real property declaration’ form, which a registered ofﬁce has to ﬁll out for every corporate client on its books, as akin to “the bruise of doing business in The Bahamas”.

The form, which has been seen by this newspaper, requires registered agents to declare that all the information supplied by their

Opposition chair: ‘Come clean’ over energy reforms progress

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

THE Opposition’s chairman yesterday urged the Government to “come clean” over its energy transformation deal amid suggestions a key partner has paused work while it waits for all agreements to be formalised.

Dr Duane Sands told Tribune Business it was clear “something is awry”, although he himself has been unable to obtain details, over Pike Electrical’s role in overhauling and modernising New Providence’s energy grid. Several

sources, all speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to talk publicly, suggested the US contractor is on a temporary hiatus until everything is signed-off and sealed.

One well-placed contact said Pike has “pulled some of their stuff off” until all necessary agreements with the Davis administration are completed, adding that the parties were behind schedule on moving the wide-ranging energy reforms unveiled last summer into a binding deal.

Jobeth Coleby-Davis, minister of energy and transport, did not respond to Tribune

Business messages seeking comment before press time last night. However, the source said “they’re a bit behind on the deal” but suggested that all necessary documents governing the upgrades to New Providence’s electrical grid could be signed as early as next week.

“I think they pulled some of their stuff off until they complete the deal,” the source added. “It should have been done already. It’s been going on for a long time. They are not far apart and are pretty close. They’re pretty close. It’s just that they have got to get it done. They’ll get it

Foreign vessel accused of ‘dozen’ illegal charters

By ANNELIA NIXON Tribune Business Reporter anixon@tribunemedia.net

AUTHORITIES yes-

terday said they hope the arrest of a vessel and its occupants accused of conducting at least “a dozen” illegal charters will deter other violators from abusing Bahamian waters.

By FAY SIMMONS Tribune Business

Gregory Bethel, director of marine resources, said there was evidence showing that the same crew and vessel have conducted similar operations more than a dozen times in this country’s waters while illegally and directly competing with Bahamians

“Three of the defendants are Americans from Florida,” Mr Bethel said. “And as was indicated earlier, it was a covert operation

SEE PAGE B7

The Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources added that the January 27 detention of ‘Highly Migratory’, and the three Americans on board, with the help of WildAid and other Bahamian government agencies had resulted on the Florida trio being arraigned in the Eight Mile Rock magistrate’s court on January 30 for violating Bahamian ﬁsheries law and criminal offenses under the Firearms Act.

visitor spending. Chester Cooper, also minister of tourism, investments and aviation, hailed a “record breaking” 2024 with total arrivals up yearover-year by almost 17

percent at 11.22m thanks largely to the increasing volume of cruise visitors. He added that The Bahamas is seeing an “uptick” in visitor spend, with cruise passenger expenditure standing at $130 on average and stopover guests averaging $2,800 per visit. There had also been an increase in average daily room rates (ADRs charged by hotels, a key indicator of visitor demand and spending strength.

done, I’m sure. They’ve got too

ADRIAN WHITE

GRAND LUCAYAN RESORT

DR DUANE SANDS

Battle over global AI dominance heats up

The artificial intelligence (AI) battle is heating up as two of the most powerful AI models, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DeepSeek AI, go head-to-head in the fight for global dominance. The AI war is no longer just about technological superiority but also about market influence, ethical consideration and the future of humancomputer interaction.

Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, OpenAI has maintained its dominance in the generative AI space. With its sophisticated natural language processing, real time conversational ability and vast dataset, ChatGPT has been widely adopted in industries ranging from education to ﬁnance. OpenAI’s model has evolved rapidly, with continuous improvements making it an

essential tool for businesses and everyday users alike.

However, in late 2023, China-based DeepSeek AI emerged as a serious competitor. Developed with the backing of major Chinese technology giants, DeepSeek promised to rival and surpass ChatGPT’s capabilities. With cutting-edge, deep-learning algorithms, a massive training dataset sourced from global and regional languages, and advanced reasoning capabilities, DeepSeek has positioned itself as a formidable alternative to OpenAI’s ﬂagship model.

Both ChatGPT and DeepSeek boast advanced language generation capabilities, but they have distinct differences:

Training data and language proﬁciency: ChatGPT, trained on diverse global datasets, excels in multiple languages but often prioritises English content. DeepSeek, while also multilingual, has shown remarkable proﬁciency in Chinese and regional dialects, giving it an edge in Asian markets.

Reasoning and problem solving: While ChatGPT is highly versatile in creative writing and problem solving, DeepSeek has demonstrated superior performance in mathematical reasoning and scientiﬁc computations.

Regulatory and ethical constraints: OpenAI adheres to strict ethical guidelines and US regulations, which sometimes limit its responses. DeepSeek, operating under different regulatory frameworks, has greater ﬂexibility but also faces concerns about government oversight and content moderation.

Market penetration: ChatGPT currently dominates Western markets, while DeepSeek is expanding rapidly across Asia. The competition is intensifying as both companies seek to penetrate each other’s strongholds.

The AI war is not just about technical capabilities; it is also about inﬂuence. OpenAI has

ROYE II KEITH

forged partnerships with technology giants such as Microsoft, integrating ChatGPT into Bing and enterprise solutions. DeepSeek, on the other hand, has strong backing from Chinese firms and government institutions, positioning itself as a key player in China’s push for AI self-sufficiency. The battle for AI leadership has also raised questions about data privacy, content bias and geopolitical implications. With increasing AI regulations worldwide, both ChatGPT and DeepSeek must navigate complex legal landscapes to expand their reach. As competition intensifies, both AI models will continue to evolve, incorporating more sophisticated reasoning, real world applications and integration with various industries. The real question is not just who will win the AI race, but how AI itself will shape the future of humanity. For now, the world watches as ChatGPT and DeepSeek continue their technological arms race - one that could define the next era of artificial intelligence.

lytic and solutions-driven professional with extensive experience in software development. He holds a and his career includes leading and delivering global software projects in various

INSPECTORS: LAW CAPS RENT AT 20% OF PROPERTY’S VALUE

GOVERNMENT

inspec-

tors yesterday asserted that Bahamian law prevents landlords charging tenants rental rates that exceed more than 20 percent of the property’s value. Reno V Smith, chief price inspector for the northern Bahamas, said tenants on Grand Bahama have voiced multiple complaints about their living conditions, terms imposed by landlords and unfair treatment by the latter.

Speaking after the Consumer Protection Commission and consumer affairs held a Town Hall meeting in Bimini this

week, where ofﬁcials discussed tenant and landlord rights with participants,

Mr Smith said there were not many complaints about landlords on the island over-charging. Complaints instead have focused on deteriorating infrastructure and environmental hazards, especially in Grand Bahama. “It’s not so much overcharging, but landlords not keeping the accommodations in a liveable state, especially in Grand Bahama, deteriorating. We have a lot of deterioration and environmental issues,” said Mr Smith.

“There are septic tanks open or overﬂowing with sewage, or constant back-up of sewage in the bathroom. That becomes an environmental issue, and we get

the environmental department involved with that. Those are the type of major complaints we ﬁnd with landlords and tenants.”

Mr Smith said that, occasionally, there are disputes over landlords attempting to evict tenants without a court order and highlighted that only a magistrate can lawfully evict a tenant.

“Every now and then a landlord would think that they have the authority to lock a tenant out of the apartment or house,” he added.

“They might give them notice to move. Some of them are calling it an eviction notice. No landlord can evict any tenant from the house or apartment. They can give them notice to move, but only the courts in The Bahamas, only a

Inspections uncover merchant with 35 expired drug products

By FAY SIMMONS Tribune Business Reporter jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas’ consumer watchdog says its ofﬁcials found one Bimini merchant with 35 expired items, including some dating from 2021, during recent inspections on the island. The Consumer Protection Commission said it has now partnered with consumer affairs to increase its presence on the Family Islands and hold Town Hall meetings ahead of the 50 percent VAT rate slash on most food items that is set to take effect on April 1. Senator Randy Rolle, the Commission’s executive chairman, said the ﬁrst

magistrate, can evict someone from a place.

“Every now and then, we’ll see the landlord changing the lock or taking the doors off the hinges to get a tenant out. That is against the law. If the tenant says something is missing from the house or apartment as a result of the landlord doing that, the landlord will be responsible for any loss of any goods that the tenant might have had in his or her apartment.”

Mr Smith added that, by law, landlords can only charge 20 percent of the value of the of the property as rent; must provide a receipt upon payment; and cannot withhold a security deposit for normal ‘wear and tear’.

“They can’t just set the price of rent at leisure.

The Government’s position is you can only charge 20 percent of the value of the house or apartment. If it’s a triplex, that’s 20 percent divided by three. Some people think they could just charge whatever they want for rent, but it doesn’t work like that. Rent is, I don’t want to say, a control item, but we do have a Rental Board to assist consumers,” said Mr Smith.

“We also tried to let the landlord know what their responsibilities are to keep the place in a liveable condition, the yard clean and they are to issue receipts whenever a tenant pays the rent. They cannot withhold a person’s security deposit because the children might have written or drawn on a wall or things with little damage.

“That’s no reason to withhold a tenant’s deposit from them at the time, as that’s basic wear and tear, and so the landlord needs to know that they cannot hold withhold the person’s security.” Mr Smith said tenants were also made aware they have an obligation to pay their rent on time and ensure they do not damage the property in which they are residing.

“We also shared with tenants their obligations to landlords. They must pay their rent on time. They cannot damage the apartment house when they’re leaving and expect full compensation of the security deposit if the damage is beyond regular wear and tear,” said Mr Smith.

Town Hall meeting was held in Bimini on Wednesday for business owners while inspections were also carried out on the island. He added that, while inspectors found “minor violations”, business owners were educated on how to comply with the Price Control Act.

“A lot of the providers were not familiar with the schedule and some of the prices that they should be providing. So that’s something consumer affairs is dealing with,” said Mr Rolle.

“There were minor violations as well that they were able to talk to them about, and we have an ofﬁcer on the island and they’re going to do some follow-up visits. But overall, the effort is to make sure we have as much people as compliant as possible.”

Reno V Smith, chief price inspector for the Northern Bahamas, said all of the price violations found were “within reason” but there was an issue of stores selling expired over-the-counter medicines.

He revealed that one merchant had 35 expired items, some with an expiration date in 2021. Price control violations ranged from overpricing bread basket items by three cents to $1, and merchants were instructed to adjust their prices while inspectors were present, remove expired goods and given a warning.

“The major problem we are ﬁnding is expired drugs. That’s our main concern. One store we had to take 35 different drug items off the shelf. Some of them were expired as far back as 2021 so that was our biggest problem,” said Mr Smith.

“We found some people had some pricing issues. Bread basket items were from three cents over-priced to $1 over-priced, but they there were no major concerns. We allowed them to change all prices in our presence.

“Before we left the store, we gave them a warning. We give them two warnings, so when we come back, and they will not know when we are coming back, if we ﬁnd them in breach again, we’ll give them a second warning, and that’s it. After that prosecutions will begin,” Mr Smith said.

He added that some vendors were unaware they

had to obtain a new pricing schedule for bread basket items annually, and explained that while the schedule for the Family Islands is “basically the same” as the one for New Providence, it is adjusted to factor in shipping and transportation costs.

“For Family Islands, we take into consideration shipping and all transportation. We’re ﬁnding that some of them are not paying for the price schedule at the beginning of each year. They are required to request the price schedule at the beginning of each year, pay for it in advance, and whenever a price on a particular product changes the Bahamas printing publication department will get them the new price,” said Mr Smith.

“Some of them are falling down on the price schedule. They’re not aware that they should pay for it in advance and that they should have the price schedule visibly displayed in the store, because the consumer should know what they’re selling it for. We need a few of them to be more cognisant of the fact that they are required and mandated by law to have the price schedule visibly displayed of the stores.”

FIDELITY UNVEILS NEW CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

FIDELITY Bank (Bahamas) has named Jamal O. Ijeoma as its chief ﬁnancial ofﬁcer.

His professional career spans more than 20 years via public accounting, which includes significant experience in the financial services sector, as well as public and private entities in a variety of industries. He has served in various leadership roles, including most recently as an accounting firm partner and independence leader, and previously in areas such as internal controls, risk and compliance.

Mr Ijeoma presently serves as chairman of the Bahamas Financial Services Board (BFSB). He was also recognised as one of the ‘40 under 40 most inﬂuential and successful professionals in The Bahamas’ during 2024.

Modify ‘crippling’ property declaration, Gov’t urged

corporate clients is “true and correct” even though they will not necessarily be able to verify its total accuracy. Details on all beneﬁcial owners/shareholders; property addresses and their tax assessment numbers; and taxpayer identiﬁcation numbers are just some of the details sought.

Also sought by the Department of Inland Revenue is information on whether a particular property is jointly owned with another company or person; if it is being held in trust for someone; and if a corporate entity or person is holding it in trust for the reporting company. These speciﬁcs must be provided for, and repeated, for all properties owned by the reporting company, as well as all sales and purchases it has participated in.

Mr White, warning that The Bahamas “cannot continue to take business for granted”, said the increase in paperwork, time and costs for both registered agents and their clients in completing the ‘real property declaration’ has to be set against this nation’s competitiveness with Caribbean and global rivals. He warned against “squeezing business until the last drop is taken because it looks like we can get more”.

And John Delaney, former attorney general and now principal at the Delaney Partners law ﬁrm, told Tribune Business that the ‘real property declaration’ imposes responsibilities upon registered ofﬁces and agents that go far beyond those set out in the Companies Act.

He added that while the compliance burden is now being placed on registered agents, they do not hold the information being sought by the Department of Inland Revenue and are instead wholly reliant on their corporate clients to

provide this in time to meet the February 15 deadline. Tribune Business reported last June, just after the 2024-2025 Budget was unveiled, how the Government was amending the VAT Act to mandate that registered agents and ofﬁces must submit annual declarations on all their corporate clients’ real estate deals and holdings as part of a crackdown on VAT evasion.

It appears that few in the private sector took much notice at the time, but they are deﬁnitely alive to it now.

Mr Delaney said full guidance on what is required was only made available to the private sector, via the likes of the BFSB, last month and it would have been impossible to provide details on all client real estate holdings, plus any 2024 transactions, before then.

Dexter Fernander, the Department of Inland Revenue’s operations manager, could not be reached for comment before press time last night. However, concerns were mounting that the ‘real property declaration’ is unnecessarily adding to the already-strained cost and ease of doing business in The Bahamas.

“We understand the Government’s concern to close VAT loopholes, and the private sector is willing to assist, but the method that has been presented is onerous and needs to be rescinded,” Mr O’Brien told Tribune Business.

“The BFSB and the Bar Association are putting their heads together to present some alternatives not just complain but, in the meantime, the task that has been given us is unreasonable and I strongly doubt many registered ofﬁces and agents are going to have the ability to comply. Furthermore, I don’t think the Department of Inland Revenue is going to be able to process all the information.

“Could you imagine getting this from your

registered agent at the beginning of the year and told: ‘You have to get this back to me in two weeks’?”

Mr O’Brien argued that much of the information sought by the ‘real property declaration’ should already be in the possession of government agencies such as the Bahamas Investment Authority (BIA), beneﬁcial ownership registry and companies registry.

“We’re ﬁelding a lot of questions,” he added. “Our clients aren’t sure what they’re supposed to do, and this is an enormous human effort that can be addressed in a more reasonable and meaningful way.” Mr O’Brien said alternatives, apart from setting a ﬂoor or threshold such that only high-value transactions have to be reported, include modifying the amount of information required.

He added that a more “long-term solution” is for the information to be provided when each individual transaction occurs, which would ease the burden on all parties involved, while another alternative is for registered agents to submit information via a list rather than “a declaration for each company”.

“I close off with a hypothetical,” Mr O’Brien said of the challenge in complying by the February 15 deadline. “I wonder what the Government will do if there is 90 percent noncompliance. Are they going to shut down the corporate industry? Are they going to ﬁne everybody; put us all in jail?

“We understand the Government’s objective, and are willing to support the effort to plug loopholes for VAT, but what’s been proposed is crippling with the likelihood that the Department of Inland Revenue does not have the manpower to absorb the information even if it receives it.”

Mr White, meanwhile, described the ‘real property declaration’ as “another hit on top of everything

else we have to deal with. It’s a bit exhausting; it’s overly exhausting”. He said around one-quarter of his law ﬁrm’s tike is devoted to dealing with compliance issues on an annual basis, and added that companies likely have to assign “almost one-quarter of their workforce to managing regulatory hurdles and red tape” to stay in business.

“We cannot continue to take business for granted,” the St Anne’s MP told this newspaper. “The country cannot continue to take business for granted. We cannot squeeze business until the last drop is taken because it looks like we can get more. We cannot keep on squeezing a business because it looks like there’s more that we can get from it.”

Suggesting that “there’s not much that’s private any more in Bahamian business”, because of the level of disclosure required to both regulators and the tax authorities, Mr White said of the ‘real property declaration’: “The actual form you have to ﬁll out for each entity is 16 pages in length. How is that the ease of doing business? That’s the bruise of doing business in The Bahamas.

“You have to guide your clients through it all, all of the threats of ﬁling deadlines hanging over you, and not every client has the resources to do it themselves. You have to work with the client, advise them, approve it and sign-off on it.

“I’ve said it in the House of Assembly before: The largest commercial building on Carmichael Road, our second commercial city in New Providence, used to be occupied by RBC. I was summoned there by a client, and found it’s no longer occupied by RBC and FINCO, but it’s a special collection unit of the Department of Inland Revenue. That slaps you in the face and says the biggest

business in The Bahamas is now tax collection.”

Mr Delaney, meanwhile, said of the ‘real property declaration’: “It’s an incredibly burdensome obligation to be put on registered ofﬁces in circumstances where they are really not required to know the underlying transaction aspect of their client’s affairs.

“It’s an onerous duty that has been placed on registered ofﬁces and, in many instances, it will likely be a challenge for them to be able to obtain all the information” and meet the February 15 deadline. The ex-attorney general said the concern is not the Government’s drive to crack down on real estate-related tax evasion but, rather, “where certain burdens are placed” because registered ofﬁces do not hold the details requested.

“Nothing in the Companies Act requires that of registered agents,” Mr Delaney said of the new duties. “The application of VAT inquiries and collection of information is a drastic expansion of the scope of registered offices. There’s nothing about the registered office business that contemplates changing for that. There’s nothing about the resources they have engaged to deliver corporate office functions that contemplates doing that.

“If it were felt that was the way then they ought to give sufficient notice. This came out without communication. It [the real property declaration] came out in the January, the first week of January, via the BFSB to inform registered offices and tell them what they have got to do.”

The primary functions of registered ofﬁces are to keep and maintain their corporate clients’ records; ensure they remain in good standing and pay all related fees/submit all necessary ﬁlings; and act as the location where legal proceedings can be served on their clients.

The ‘real property declaration’ reforms are designed to tighten the regulatory net and prevent the evasion/avoidance of VAT due on high-end real estate sales worth over $1m - a revenue stream that the Prime Minister said has under-performed during last Mays 2024-2025 Budget.

The move, which is legally required via the new section 47B in the VAT Act, mandates that all corporate entities must notify their registered agent within 15 days of a real estate transaction closing regardless of whether they are buyer or seller.

Then the registered agent, or the Registrar General if a company has no such agent, must “submit a declaration” to the VAT comptroller by December 31 every year on all their corporate clients’ real estate dealings over the previous 12 months. That date, for this ﬁrst time, has been shifted to February 15.

“The declaration shall include whether or not the company holds or has sold, transferred, assigned or otherwise disposed of an interest in any real property over the last 12 months,” the Act stipulates. The declaration must also include “the nature of the company’s interest in, and other particulars as prescribed by the comptroller of all real property” bought and sold that year.

And, ﬁnally, the “declaration” must also supply “particulars as prescribed by the comptroller of all changes in the legal or beneﬁcial interest of any of the shares” in domestic companies or IBCs over the prior 12 months. This appears designed to prevent persons evading VAT on real estate sales by transferring the subject property’s ownership to a company, then selling the latter’s shares to the purchaser.

“We’re seeing an uptick in spending from cruise visitors. We estimate it now to be in the $130 per passenger region on average, and I think the number for stopovers is in the region of $2,800 per guest. We see an uptick overall in these numbers. We’ve seen an uptick in the average daily rates charged by hotels, which is a key indicator of spending of stopover guests,” Mr Cooper said.

The Bahamas as number one in the Caribbean and Latin America in terms of total overall economic beneﬁt from the cruise business.

“The 2024 impact of cruise tourism report by Business Research and Economic Advisers, as commissioned by the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association, has ranked

“These passengers and crew visits, along with additional expenditures by the cruise lines, generated a total of $654m in cruise tourism expenditure in

The Bahamas in 2023-2024, according to this report, compared to $405m in 2018. This is a staggering 61 percent overall increase.

“Our estimates suggest that when we add direct employment, taxes, levies and the overall beneﬁts, it exceeds $1.25bn, with overall tourist spending in the $6bn range. Notwithstanding, the Government has engaged a study to further calculate and examine the overall economic beneﬁt of the cruise business to the Bahamian economy.”

Mr Cooper said more than 11.2 combined air and sea arrivals were recorded in 2024 to make it the “best year ever” for tourism. The Bahamas welcomed 1.15m visitors in December 2024 alone, setting a new record for number of arrivals in a month.

“At the end of 2024, The Bahamas recorded a record-breaking 11.22 m overall foreign air and sea arrivals, surpassing the previous year’s numbers by 16.2 percent and 2019 ﬁgures by 54.7 percent. This is the best year ever, exceeding the 2023 record,” said Mr Cooper.

“Out of that number, foreign air arrivals across all destinations exceeded 1.72 m, equalling the 1.72 m arrivals recorded in 2023 and surpassing the 1.67 m foreign air arrivals recorded in 2019 by 3.3 percent. December 2024 was the best month ever in terms of arrivals with 1.15 m visitors, posting 14 percent ahead of December 2023 and 62 percent ahead of December 2019.

“The above results are posted notwithstanding the interruptions of Hurricane Milton, Oscar and the US elections. We point out further that the limited capacity in room inventory further dampens the trajectory of growth in air arrivals.”

Update promised on Golden Yolk scheme

By ANNELIA NIXON Tribune Business

THE Ministry of Agriculture is still working toward the construction of an egg production industry and pushing for Bahamian agriculture, especially through schools.

Saying they are “ironing out all of those wrinkles” brought on by a delay, Jomo Campbell, Agriculture minister, promised feedback on the Golden Yolk.

“First and foremost, let me just clarify, the Golden Yolk is more than a programme,” Mr Campbell said. “The Golden Yolk is the creation of an industry, of the egg producing

industry. And so due to external factors, there was some delay, but we are now ironing out all of those wrinkles. And I can tell you in a very short space in time, perhaps within the next two weeks, we should be able to give you some positive feedback on the traction that Golden Yolk is taking. Work is being steadily progressing at the site. If you would have happened to visit recently, you would see that the land clearing preparation is underway, the fences are going up. So that means that something big is on the way. So just stay tuned. And in a very short space in time, the public at large will get to see exactly what the meaning behind the Golden Yolk is all about.”

As he encouraged Bahamians to support local businesses where they may ﬁnd eggs at a cheaper price, he said a similar project to the Golden Yolk programme is on the horizon. He noted some schools also have similar programmes.

“Separate and apart from that, we wish to remind the general public that there are other options and alternatives available,” Mr Campbell said. “Just recently, the Prime Minister and I, we visited a farm of Mr Cargill, Essential Farms, who was inspired by the Golden Yolk. And they’re selling eggs, I think, at under $7 a carton. And so we encourage Bahamians to support other small local businesses that may not be the familiar names

Grand Lucayan ‘important’ in revitalising Grand Bahama

By FAY SIMMONS Tribune Business Reporter jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

DEPUTY Prime Minis-

ter Chester Cooper said the Grand Lucayan Resort is important to the economy of Grand Bahama and will play a signiﬁcant role in the revitalisation of the island.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Mr Cooper declined to give details of the sale of the Grand Lucayan Resort, noting that Prime Minister Philip Davis recently said the government is in the ﬁnal stage of negotiations.

“Firstly, let me say that I maintain that my comments as it relates to the actual sale would be constrained until money is in the bank, so I have nothing to add to what the Prime Minister said,” he said.

“Overall, the Grand Lucayan Resort is an important plank, it’s an important infrastructure, really, overall economy of Grand Bahama. It supports the local economy as well, through meetings, for conventions, for entertainment, for weddings and parties, etc.

“Minister for Grand Bahama (Ginger Moxey) talks about Grand Bahama as the events and entertainment capital of the Bahamas. We believe that this resort can and will play a signiﬁcant role in the overall development of this vision for the island of Grand Bahama.”

Mr Cooper said the government spends $1m per month to maintain the resort and pay employees and their wages help to sustain the economy of Grand Bahama.

“The overall subvention from the government to the Grand Lucayan and resort is in the region of $1m a month, this maintains the resort. A lot of it is fixed costs that we would need to pay whether the resort is open or closed. For example, keeping the air condition running to ensure that the quality of the property is maintained. And of course, we maintain the employment of more than 200 Bahamians at the moment, which is a significant economic benefit for the people and the island of Grand Bahama,” he explained.

He said the resort is seeing high occupancy

University hit by ransomware raid

By ANNELIA NIXON Tribune Business Reporter

STUDENTS have expressed concern following a ransomware attack on the University of The Bahamas network.

Found on February 2, UB’s investigation on the attack is ongoing. The institution advised students to “stay alert and vigilant for any unusual activity” on personal accounts and to change their passwords and enable two-factor authentication on personal accounts. They are currently accepting cash only in terms of payments. They announced that online services were suspended including the WiFi network, access to the online library and the school’s computer lab, as

levels through February driven by tourist arrivals and construction workers from the Grand Bahama Shipyard and Carnival’s Celebration Key.

“The Grand Lucayan Resort, notwithstanding that it is in transition, is now reporting a fairly signiﬁcant occupancy to the end of February. A lot of this is driven by tourism. Some of it is driven by the industrial sector,” said Mr Cooper.

“We’re seeing signiﬁcant movement in terms of the Grand Bahama Shipyard and the start of that construction, and of course, the construction of the Celebration Key Cruise Port is bringing signiﬁcant levels of new employment and economic activity and of course, have contracted dozens of Bahamian entrepreneurs who would participate actively as that comes on stream.

“I like to talk about the rising tide effect, the Grand Lucayan resort is important, but it takes the entire economy moving in the same direction together to truly revitalize the economy of Grand Bahama we’re pushing in that regard.”

Mr Cooper said the country has gained over $10bn in

well as “any online modality”. In a statement, UB revealed what they are doing in relation to the incident.

“Our Technology Services and cyber security specialists are working aggressively to contain the breach and resolve this matter. We have engaged law enforcement and are following all legal protocols. As a precautionary measure, access to UB’s Learning Management System (Moodle, Banner, Elevate), the Microsoft suite, and online apps on the website remains temporarily shut down.”

and shop around in order to get prices. But separate and apart from the Golden Yolk, there’s another project that will be announced in short order that is also inspired by the Golden Yolk that will seek to bolster the egg industry as well as alleviate the high prices of eggs at this moment in time.

“We’re also looking to strengthen that sector with the provisions of check-ins in the schools. And there are several schools now that are carrying out similar programmes related to egg production. And we want to enhance that because agriculture is a hands-on industry. And it really starts by adjusting the mindset that shifts our reliance on foreign imports and rather

foreign direct investments over the last two years including the Six Senses Resort in Grand Bahama and Celebration Key and announced that another touristic investment worth “hundreds of millions of dollars” for Grand Bahama will be revealed “shortly”.

“We were pleased to see the attractions of more than $10bn of Foreign Direct Investments over the last two years with highend brands like Montage, Rosewood, Six Senses, Montage, Rosewood, Park Hyatt, Bvglari and Four Seasons Residences. This is extremely positive for cementing our reputation as a premier luxury destination,” said Mr Cooper.

“We also positive of the contributions to be made by Celebration Key in Grand Bahama the Royal Caribbean Beach Club in New Providence which are both expected to come on stream before the end of 2025. We also anticipate another touristic investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in Grand Bahama that will be announced shortly.”

shifts it towards the local producers.”

Permanent Secretary Neil Campbell said some schools already have chicken coops set up.

“Last year, we gave $30,000 worth of grants to schools,” Mr Campbell said. “$2,500 per school through the length and breadth of The Bahamas, whether New Providence, Grand Bahama or the other islands. This year we intend to double it. We had a budgetary meeting last week and we intend to double it from the $30,000 to $60,000. And that’s for seedlings, backyard farming kits, hoes, drip systems, everything else. And also we are going to give some technical advice. The cadet corps program is not only where they will be isolated. We have where with the Department of Agriculture, with the land preparation, we’re going to have a rotation or a scheduling with a register with once a teacher or whoever is assisting them want to prepare their grounds or anything else, they let us know, we will send our operators there with equipment and they will prepare the grounds.”

The Tribune wants to hear from people who are making news in their neighbourhoods. Perhaps you are raising funds for a good cause, campaigning for improvements in the area or have won an award. If so, call us on 322-1986 and share your story.

The U.S. Embassy anticipates signifcant contracting opportunities over the next 6 months. We encourage all qualifed Bahamian companies to directly and actively pursue these economic opportunities with the U.S. Government. All vendors that wish to do business with The U.S. Embassy, Nassau, are required to register their business in SAM – System for Award Management – prior to receiving a contract award. There is no cost to register with or use SAM. Please start now: the registration process can take up to six weeks and should be completed before bidding on any solicitations or opportunities.

Interested vendors should register at https://sam.gov/ Click on “Get Started” to initiate setting up a user account and then registering your business with SAM. A checklist of instructions is available after clicking on the “Get Started” link from the home page.

Applicants will also need to set up an account at https://login.gov, which is used when logging into the SAM website. FAQs, a Knowledge Base, Live Chat, and other assistance with the registration process is found at https://www.fsd.gov

For additional information, or a list of anticipated contract opportunities, please contact NasauContractingOffcers@state.gov

Grand Lucayan facing ‘chilly’ $532k demand

chairman of Lucayan Renewal Holdings, the special purpose vehicle that owns the resort on the Government’s behalf, declined to comment on the lawsuit when contacted by Tribune Business yesterday.

The basis for Trane’s claim dates back to when the Minnis administration was in ofﬁce. This newspaper reported on July 20, 2021, on how the Grand Lucayan was forced to close for seven to ten days due to an inferior water supply that “rotted our chillers” and left the resort without air conditioning.

Michael Scott KC, who was Mr Russell’s predecessor, slammed the closure as “a disgrace” and disclosed that the Grand Lucayan was set to invest around $500,000 in installing a reverse osmosis plant to produce its own water as the quality of Grand Bahama Utility Company’s (GBUC) supply cannot be trusted.

Revealing that the Grand Lucayan was then paying the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) owned utility $40,000 per month for water, he told Tribune Business that the high salinity levels in this supply were responsible for corroding the resort’s chillers and thus shutting down its A/C systems. Further details are disclosed by Trane’s lawsuit. It revealed that around one year after the Minnis administration invested $65m to acquire the Grand Lucayan

from Hutchison Whampoa’s real estate arm to avert its threatened closure, the resort agreed on October 15, 2019, to temporarily rent one of its 1,000-ton watercooled chillers to support the AC system.

The deal was signed by Veronica Clarke, the Grand Lucayan’s manager, and the chiller was duly delivered on October 31, 2019. “On or about February 4, 2021, Trane responded to a service call to evaluate the ﬁrst rental chiller because it was not operating properly,” the lawsuit alleged.

“Upon evaluation of the first rental chiller, Trane’s technician found extreme scaling and fouling of the condenser tubes. The technician was unable to adequately fix the first rental chiller. Due to the inoperability of the first rental chiller, Lucayan [Renewal Holdings] insisted that Trane supply a replacement 1,000-ton water-cooled chiller.

“The first rental chiller was returned to Trane with significant corrosive damage that rendered it unusable and irreparable. Trane agreed to provide a second chiller to [the Grand] Lucayan while it evaluated the cause of failure of the first rental chiller at its repair facility in Florida.”

The second temporary rental chiller was shipped to the Grand Bahama resort on March 4, 2021, with the same terms and conditions as in the original agreement remaining in effect. “On or about July 7, 2021, Trane

responded to a service call to evaluate the second rental chiller that was not operating,” the Florida-based company alleged.

“The Trane technician found a tripped oil pump circuit breaker and later conﬁrmed a grounded oil pump motor. The Trane technician also found indications of condenser water intrusion into the refrigerant side of the chiller from fouled condenser water tubes.

“The second rental chiller was removed from the Grand Lucayan’s facility on July 8, 2021. The second rental chiller was returned to Trane with signiﬁcant corrosive damage that rendered it unusable and irreparable.”

While Trane was investigating the damage to the ﬁrst chiller, it alleged that Nalco Water, an independent third-party consultant, was conducting an investigation into the Grand Lucayan’s water quality in April 2021. “Nalco Water found that the chlorides in the water were high and concluded that the chlorides were making the system susceptible to corrosion,” Trane alleged.

“Nalco Water highly recommended the Grand Lucayan invest in a reverse osmosis plant to supply process water because the chloride levels on make-up water was about 1,010ppm (parts per million).

According to Nalco, the recommended limit for chloride levels by any chiller provider is normally 40-80ppm.

“Trane notiﬁed Grand Lucayan that it was

Opposition chair: ‘Come

clean’

over energy reforms progress

FROM PAGE B1

Power & Light’s (BPL) transmission and distribution network. It has been contracted by Bahamas Grid Company, the entity to which New Providence’s electrical grid has been transferred, and the latter’s management partner, Island Grid.

Eric Pike, Island Grid’s principal, also heads Pike Electrical. The arrival of Pike-branded bucket trucks last summer signalled their intention to make aggressive progress, but Dr Sands said their presence on New Providence’s streets has notably reduced in recent weeks.

“Something is awry,” the Opposition’s chairman argued, as he alleged that Bahamians are being “kept in the dark” over the energy reforms and their progress. “It seems as if all is not well in the camp. Certainly, and listening to the language that is coming out of different places, I am not sure if

this is a salvageable situation or not.

“The speciﬁcs I do not know, but certainly their [Pike’s] footprint seems to be less, drastically less than it was a month or two ago. You used to see those Pike vehicles all over the place and now you don’t see them....

“We are in the dark and left to speculate, and I think any kind of speculation therefore is appropriate and reasonable because there is absolutely no information forthcoming at all despite the fact that whatever deal has been cut impacts not only national patrimony but taxpayer dollars. If we lived in a country where the will of the people was in any way considered there would be a level of outrage,” he added.

“They’ll be a day late and a dollar short. They ought to come clean and explain what has happened, how it has happened, when it happened and how much they spent and promised. We’re all crowding around,

peering in the darkened window trying to see this deal which is certainly behind the shelf and has not been done in broad daylight.

“Where did Pike come from? Who invited them? Did they go out to tender? What is the dollar value of this deal? What is going to happen to the [BPL] workers?”

Anthony Ferguson, a Bahamas Grid Company director, earlier this week refuted suggestions that Pike Electrical had initiated a temporary pause as it waits for all necessary agreements to be concluded and added that “everything is progressing well” Asserting that he “doesn’t see any issues or challenges” for Pike’s relationship with Bahamas Grid Company or the Government, he conﬁrmed that “one outstanding matter” is expected to be resolved before the week ends but declined to provide any details.

necessary that they address the water treatment on Grand Lucayan’s property and install/repair the reverse osmosis system.... On October 17, 2022, Trane retained an engineering company, SEA, to investigate, research and test the ﬁrst rental chiller and the second rental chiller to determine the cause of damage.

“SEA examined the rental chillers, securing samples of the chillers’ tubes for evaluation. SEA conducted an examination of the tubes from the rental chillers.

SEA reviewed the Nalco Water report, which detailed the Grand Lucayan’s water quality during the period when the rental chillers were located on Grand Lucayan’s property.

“SEA ultimately concluded that Grand Lucayan’s use of contaminated water led to the corrosion of tubes that caused the rental chillers to fail.” Trane further claimed that, as part of the $24,000 per month rental agreement, the Grand Lucayan was supposed to operate the chillers in accordance with procedures laid down by the manufacturer and allow necessary maintenance by qualiﬁed personnel.

“Lucayan [Renewal Holdings] was contractually obligated to return the rental chillers in good working condition, less normal wear and tear,” Trane alleged.”Lucayan failed to operate the rental chillers in compliance with the installation, operation and maintenance manual for the

Bahamas Grid Company, on its website, said that as of January 18, 2025, it has set 181 new electrical distribution poles on New Providence to ensure the delivery of reliable energy to homes and businesses, as well as replaced 58,000 wires with newer cables that “can efﬁciently carry more power”.

It added that it has already spent 1,500 hours on emergency work to help BPL respond to outages and restore power, and installed 47 IntelliRupters island-wide to help isolate problems and conﬁne outages to speciﬁc areas. And some 49 street lights have also been replaced and upgraded.

“Bahamas Grid Company’s ﬁrst-year goal is two-fold: To help reduce the frequency and duration of outages in New Providence when requested by BPL in a way that all Bahamians can see the difference,” it said. “And invest in New Providence’s grid system and strengthen it so that it is properly sized to support our nation’s economy and population.

“After the ﬁrst year, Bahamas Grid Company will continue to manage

rental chillers, as required by the rental agreement.

“Speciﬁcally, Lucayan used untreated and/or improperly treated water for the rental chillers. Lucayan knew, or should have known, that the water it was using for the rental chillers were untreated and/or improperly treated.” Trane added that the cost to replace the chillers is $532,282, which it is now seeking to recover from the Grand Bahama resort’s owner, plus loss of income from not being able to rent them out.

While Trane’s legal action is unlikely to disrupt the Grand Lucayan’s potential sale to US-based developer, Concord Wilshire, it represents a further potential exposure for Bahamian taxpayers apart from the initial $65m acquisition cost and continuing annual subsidies to cover the property’s operating losses.

The 2024-2025 Budget provides a $17m subsidy for the resort and its immediate holding company, Lucayan Renewal Holdings, which matches the current ﬁscal year’s allocation. However, the $17m provided for the 2023-2024 Budget year was virtually exhausted at endMarch 2024, with some $16.632m having been spent, meaning that Bahamian taxpayers will almost certainly incur cost overruns.

And, given that the Government provided Lucayan Renewal Holdings with $17.882m in the 2022-2023 ﬁscal year, the resort is set to cost taxpayers close to $54m by the time the upcoming

the transmission system, distribution system and substations on an ongoing basis to ensure system reliability, affordability, resiliency and authenticity.”

Bahamas Grid Company and its management ﬁrm, Island Grid, paired $100m in bond debt capital raised from Bahamian investors with $30m in equity also raised locally to complete the $130m in ﬁnancing required to complete “foundational upgrades” to the transmission and distribution network it now controls.

The Government, via BPL, has a minority 40 percent ownership interest in Bahamas Grid Company in exchange for contributing New Providence electricity grid assets valued at $100m, whereas the private investors who put up the $30m equity have 60 percent majority control.

Bahamas Grid Company is forecasting that its grid improvements will generate between $10m-$30m in annual savings per year at the start of its initial 25-year term through “less line loss and reduced outages”. It will also install an additional 172 mega watts (MW) of grid carrying capacity

ﬁscal year closes at end-June 2025. Given this subsidy run rate, taxpayer exposure to the Grand Lucayan now likely exceeds $200m with much of this sum unlikely to be recovered via a sale.

Ian Rolle, the GBPA’s president, blamed an “act of God” for the Grand Lucayan’s water woes when he replied to Mr Scott in 2021. That was Hurricane Dorian, whose storm surge inundated Grand Bahama Utility Company’s wellﬁelds in September 2019.

“We ﬁnd it very unfortunate and disingenuous that the Grand Lucayan, with whom we have engaged in ongoing communication and continue to serve, would take this route to communicate with us,” Mr Rolle said.

“While the Grand Bahama Utility Company (GBUC) remains sensitive to the signiﬁcant damage caused by Hurricane Dorian on Grand Bahama, the impact to the water table and salt intrusion was a direct result of the storm. Therefore, we are not liable for any direct or consequential damages to personal property as it relates to this Act of God.

“We have taken measures to lessen the impact to the Grand Lucayan and other impacted customers by providing a 25 per cent discount on water bills. Additionally, Grand Bahama Utility Company on a daily basis provides 1,000 gallons of potable water at no additional cost to the Grand Lucayan.”

between Clifton Pier and the rest of New Providence, and is promising grid operating costs and consumer bills will be reduced.

The joint venture is pledging a “reduction in frequency and duration of large-scale outages, enabled by the substation protection schemes”. It is also promising “fewer appliance issues stemming from the distribution upgrades, which will reduce voltage ﬂuctuations on parts of the island that are most impacted by them”. There will also be “less line/voltage loss, or more power delivered with the same fuel use, resulting from the transmission upgrades. The ongoing cost savings associated with this beneﬁt will sustain the residential utility bill reductions beyond year one”.

The proposed Heads of Agreement with the Government will allow Bahamas Grid Company, in addition to the 5.5 cents per kilowatt hour (KWh) it is set to receive from all customer billings, to levy a “onetime interconnection fee or demand charge” for “new generation and/or large customer loads” added to the grid.

Foreign vessel accused of ‘dozen’ illegal charters

where we had evidence that they have been in and out of The Bahamas in similar types of operations on more than a dozen occasions.

“And so it wasn’t that this was a one-off where you give them the beneﬁt of the doubt that they really didn’t know what the laws were.

But for you to do it up to 12 times, that means you were intentionally engaged. And so we would have gathered the information, as was indicated, from Bahamians who were concerned.

“And our job is to, you know, where there’s sufﬁcient evidence, take action. And this was one of those instances where we had more than sufﬁcient evidence to take action. When we look at the Fisheries Act, the penalties are all there. At the end of the day,

it’s the decision of the court. Now, the decision can be a ﬁne as well as conﬁscation of property. But that decision lies with the court,” Mr Bethel added.

“In our case, as the minister indicated, we would want to send a message that we do not favour breaking our laws. If any one of us were to travel to, let’s say, Florida today, and we just want to throw a line overboard, we need a permit to do that. And so the thing is, what gives you the authority as a foreigner to come into The Bahamas and just break our laws?

“It is illegal to operate in our waters, whether it’s on a commercial basis or sport ﬁshing basis, without the relevant permits. Unfortunately, with this particular operation, we had gathered evidence where these persons have been in and out

of The Bahamas operating illegally on more than 12 occasions.”

Jomo Campbell, minister of agriculture and marine resources, said the Customs Department, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the Royal Bahamas Police Force, the Department of Marine Resources and WildAid, a marine enforcement organisation, and vigilant Bahamian citizens, were all involved in the detention.

He added: “This operation is a signiﬁcant milestone in our ongoing efforts to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated ﬁshing.” Mr Campbell reiterated that non-compliance will lead to legal action and “the protection of our marine resources is non-negotiable”.

“On Monday, 27 January, a foreign ﬁshing

Fast fashion, laptops and toys are likely to cost more due to US tariffs on Chinese imports

By HALELUYA HADERO Associated Press

A SWEEPING new U.S. tariff on products made in China is expected to increase the prices American consumers pay for a wide array of products, from the ultra-cheap apparel sold on online shopping platforms to toys and electronic devices such as computers and cellphones.

An additional 10% tariff on all Chinese goods took effect a day after President Donald Trump agreed to pause his threatened tariffs against Mexico and Canada for 30 days. The delay followed negotiations on Trump's demands for the North American nations to take steps to reduce illegal immigration and the ﬂow of drugs such as fentanyl into the U.S. After failing to get a similar White House reprieve, China struck back by saying it would impose retaliatory tariffs on some U.S. goods as of next week. The sheer volume and variety of the China-made merchandise sold in the U.S. means the prices of many typically inexpensive items probably will tick higher if the tit-fortat tariffs persist. These are some of the products most likely to be impacted:

Electronics, home supplies and car parts

The U.S. imported about $427 billion worth of goods from China in 2023, the most recent year with complete data, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Consumer electronics, including

cellphones, computers and other tech accessories, make up the biggest import categories.

China is a dominant production engine for tech gear, including for American companies like Apple that have their products assembled in the country. In 2023, China accounted for 78% of U.S. smartphone imports and 79% of laptop and tablet imports, the Consumer Technology Association trade group reported. The tariffs also may affect how much consumers pay for typically inexpensive clothing, shoes and kitchen items like pots and pans, as well as the big-ticket items, such as appliances, furniture and auto parts.

Jay Salaytah, 43, who runs his own auto repair shop in Detroit, said he bought some pieces of equipment sooner than he might have, anticipating they would cost more if Trump implemented his campaign promise to use import tariffs as a tool to promote U.S. manufacturing.

"I knew the costs were going to go up, and these are manufactured in China," Salaytah said of a probe test light he purchased before Tuesday's tariff went into effect.

Low-cost apparel and accessories

In addition to imposing a new tariff on Chinese imports, Trump's executive order also suspended a little-known customs exemption that allowed goods worth less than $800 to come into the U.S.

duty-free. The order left open the possibility for the loophole to still be used with shipments from other countries.

The trade rule, known as "de minimis," has existed for nearly a century. It came under greater scrutiny in recent years due to the rapidly growing number of low-cost items from China coming into the U.S. tax-free, mainly from prominent online retailers such as Shein, Temu and Alibaba's AliExpress. In response to Trump's actions, the U.S. Postal Service announced late Tuesday that it would stop accepting parcels sent from China and Hong Kong until further notice. However, the USPS quickly reversed course, saying Wednesday that it was working with Customs and Border Protection to implement a collection process for the new China tariffs to prevent delivery disruptions.

Former President Joe Biden's administration proposed a crackdown in September on the exception that allowed small value parcels to enter the U.S. without paying tax. The proposed rules did not take effect before Biden left ofﬁce.

China-founded Shein and Temu have gained global popularity by offering a quickly updated assortment of ultra-inexpensive clothes, accessories, gifts and gadgets shipped mostly from China, allowing the two e-commerce companies to compete on the home turf of American companies.

charter vessel labelled ‘Highly Migratory’ was seized in waters off of Grand Bahama after being found in violation of several Bahamian laws, including the ﬁsheries regulations and the Firearms Act,” Mr Campbell explained. “The vessel operator and two crew members were arrested and are now facing serious charges before the courts.

“This successful operation was made possible by the vigilance of local citizens who raised concerns about running an unlicensed foreign charter business in Bahamian waters. Thanks to the sharp observations of our people and the swift response of our agencies, we were able to stop that vessel before it left Bahamian waters.

“I want to remind everyone that once foreign

charter vessels are welcome, they are required to have an authorised ﬁshing license, undergo safety inspections and to comply with all relevant regulations. These measures are in place to ensure both the safety of the vessel and the protection of our natural resources,” Mr Campbell added.

“Any operator who fails to comply with these regulations is subject to legal action. Let me be clear. The protection of our marine resources is non-negotiable. And we are sending a clear and resolute message that The Bahamas is not a place where people can raid our seas.

“Any foreign entity that seeks to exploit our waters will be held accountable, just as our Bahamian ﬁshermen would be held accountable in any other

foreign jurisdiction. To our law abiding local ﬁshermen, we hear you, we stand with you and we will continue to act on your behalf.

“To those who believe that they can operate outside the law, please take this as a warning. We will use every tool at our disposal, from strategic operations to utilising technological advancements, in order to ensure that our marine resources are protected today and for future generations.

Noting that there has been an increase in reports of foreign ﬁshing charters illegally operating in Bahamian waters, Mr Campbell said Operation Red Dawn was launched to protect Bahamian ﬁsheries. Ladina Pelicanos with the Department of Marine Resources in Grand Bahama headed the detention operation.

Seattle-based Amazon is trying to compete with them through an online storefront that mimics their business model by offering cheap products shipped directly from China.

Chinese exports of lowvalue packages soared to $66 billion in 2023, up from $5.3 billion in 2018, according to report released last

week by the Congressional Research Service. In the U.S., Temu and Shein comprise about 17% of the discount market for fast fashion, toys and other consumer goods, the report said.

How much will prices go up?

It's unclear. Under de minimis, Shein, Temu and AliExpress could bypass taxes collected by customs authorities. But under the changes effective Tuesday, company shipments from China will now be subject to existing duties plus the new 10% tariff imposed by Trump, analysts said.

PACKAGES are seen stacked on the doorstep of a residence, Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021, in Upper Darby, Pa.

Photo:Matt Slocum/AP

Amazon's Whole Foods asks agency to set aside the results of a union win at a Philadelphia store

By HALELUYA HADERO Associated Press

AMAZON-owned

Whole Foods is asking the National Labor Relations Board to set aside the results of a union election in which the ﬁrst group of the company's employees voted in favor of collective bargaining.

In a ﬁling submitted to the agency this week, attorneys for Whole Foods Market argued the union involved with the election, held last week at a store in Philadelphia, interfered in the process by promising employees a 30% wage increase if they unionized and providing free transportation to them the day of the vote.

The company also accused The United Food

and Commercial Workers International Union – which worked to unionize workers through a local chapter – of intimidating employees who supported Whole Foods. The company did not provide specific details on its allegations, which the union disputes. Pro-union workers prevailed last week after 130 employees in the store – or about 57% of the ballots cast – voted in favor of organizing. The election results still need be certified by a regional director of the NLRB, which Whole Foods says can't lawfully be done since the agency currently does not have a third board member in Washington. Gynne A. Wilcox, one of the agency's board members, was fired last week by the Trump administration.

In a statement, UFCW Local 1776, the local union that pulled off the labor win, called the company's allegations baseless. It also said the objections ﬁled by Whole Foods was a legal maneuvering done to delay the bargaining process.

"We fully expected Whole Foods to try to stall this process," said Wendell Young IV, the president of the local union. "Amazon has a well-documented history of using baseless objections to undermine the rights of workers seeking representation, and this case is no different."

In its objection to the election, the upscale grocery chain also accused the NLRB of tainting the process by restraining the company from communicating its views on

unionization to employees through required meetings held during work hours.

In November, the agency's board had issued a decision that found these meetings – commonly known as captive audience meetings – were unlawful because they forced employees to attend gatherings that they may otherwise choose to skip.

LA neighbors have vastly different post-wildﬁre rebuilding options due to insurance crisis

By SALLY HO and TRÂN NGUYỄN

Associated Press

BEFORE a wildﬁre ravaged their street in northwest Altadena, Louise Hamlin and Chris Wilson lived next door to each other in nearly identical houses.

Companies typically use these meetings to deter employees from unionizing.

The board said employers may still hold meetings about unions for their workers. But they must make attendance voluntary with no adverse consequences for employees who fail to show up.

Plan.'" said Amy Bach, executive director of the consumer advocacy group United Policyholders.

"I chose an old home in an old neighborhood because it has soul," said Hamlin, a 51-year-old single mom with a teenage boy, who bought her 1,500-square-foot home 10 years ago. Today, gone are their charming English-style cottages built in 1925 with the welcoming porches and Palladian windows.

In the weeks since the Eaton wildﬁre took their homes, Hamlin and Wilson have been stumbling through the layers of business, bureaucracy and emotional trauma of surviving a natural disaster, with their sights ﬁrmly set on rebuilding.

Amid the rubble and ash, little is left of their historic neighborhood.

How they'll navigate rebuilding is a story of contrasting fortunes and unequal recovery that

reveals the nation's growing home insurance crisis. Her insurance has already paid out nearly a million dollars and she is searching for contractors. He is contemplating loans, lawsuits and moving his family out of California.

"It changes the whole trajectory to your life," said Wilson, 44, who bought his house ﬁve years ago with his wife, who is six months pregnant with their ﬁrst child.

'The Unfair Plan'

Hamlin's home was privately covered by Mercury Insurance, but Wilson was forced onto the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan — the state's bare-bones insurance program — when SafeCo declined to renew his policy last May. The FAIR Plan insures people who can't get private coverage but need insurance as a condition of their mortgage.

As wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters become more frequent due to climate change, many property owners find themselves struggling to find or afford private insurance. The issue is particularly acute in California, where some major insurance companies have stopped writing new policies altogether or are refusing to renew existing ones.

State ofﬁcials recently started rolling out new regulations to entice insurers to stay in California, with the hope of getting as many homeowners as possible off the FAIR Plan.

FAIR, with its high premiums and basic coverage, was designed as a temporary safety net until policyholders ﬁnd a more permanent option. Yet the number of FAIR Plan residential policies more than doubled from 2020 to 2024, reaching nearly 452,000 policies last year.

For Wilson and Hamlin, their parallel rebuilding journeys serve as a cautionary tale. Wilson paid nearly 60% more in premiums related to the ﬁre than Hamlin, for less than half the coverage.

"That's why a lot of people call it 'The Unfair

SafeCo's parent company Liberty Mutual said in a statement that it couldn't comment on any individual policies but acknowledged "difﬁcult but purposeful business decisions" in California.

Mercury didn't respond to requests for comment.

Janet Ruiz, spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, which represents many major insurance companies, said California is fortunate to have the FAIR Plan, which is required to accept everyone. Ruiz said outcomes would be even worse if homeowners had no coverage at all.

Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said California is working to make sure all claims are paid. He said in a statement that his ofﬁce is working to get homeowners off the FAIR Plan and back to traditional more comprehensive insurance coverage.

A FAIR Plan spokesperson declined to comment on Wilson's case, and noted that it's difﬁcult to compare policies and coverage.

31,000 wildﬁre claims Thousands of people lost their homes in the Eaton and nearby Palisades ﬁres, which were among the most destructive in California history.

The FAIR Plan said it expanded staffing to meet the surging demand and has a funding mechanism in place to pay all covered claims. State data shows more than 31,000 wildfirerelated claims had been filed as of last week, including roughly 4,400 claims under the FAIR Plan.

Hamlin had standard comprehensive home insurance, with an annual policy premium of $1,264 at the time of the ﬁre. She can receive up to $1.5 million to replace her home, other structures and personal property, including up to $303,000 for living expenses while displaced. Her policy further entitles her to coverage that could add more than $200,000 to help her rebuild.

Wilson, meanwhile, pays a $2,000 premium for the FAIR Plan that sets his maximum payout at $686,000, including

grocery business, which includes

the Amazon

ence stores. Amazon, which purchased Whole Foods in 2017 for $13.7 billion, has tried to fend off organizing efforts by delivery drivers and warehouse workers.

The union election in Philadelphia marked the ﬁrst successful entry of organized labor into

$100,000 for living expenses while displaced.

Wilson also had to buy "wrap-around insurance" for $1,500 a year for issues the FAIR Plan doesn't cover, such as burst pipes or falling objects. That supplemental plan doesn't cover ﬁre damage.

Hamlin said Mercury's support has been exceptional, immediately sending her money and helping with next steps such as ﬁnding housing and getting contractor quotes. Within days, the company wired her tens of thousands of dollars to get started while the process fell into place.

"Being able to rest at night and wake up and deal with everything else is really important," Hamlin said.

Meanwhile, Wilson has struggled to even talk to a FAIR Plan representative. There was zero communication in the ﬁrst two weeks, contact information was listed incorrectly, phone numbers had no voicemail and emails bounced back.

"Half the time, I feel like I'm doing something wrong," Wilson said.

After The Associated Press reached out for comment, Insurance Department spokesperson Michael Soller said a representative would contact Wilson directly.

'It's just luck, really' Wilson said he feels haunted by his choices. He thought he had bought property in a low-risk area, and had avoided looking for homes in another neighborhood further north after hearing that people there had been dropped by their insurers.

Hamlin, too, was aware of the ﬁre risks when she moved in. She previously lived in Pasadena and was surprised that State Farm, her then-insurance company, would not offer her coverage in Altadena. She chose Mercury because it was the cheapest option, and was considering pursuing even more robust coverage.

"I could have been dropped when Chris was dropped. Any of us could be at any time. It's just luck, really. It's nothing I did or didn't do," Hamlin said, stunned by the comparison. "I had the same risk factors as everyone else."

A WHOLE Foods Market grocery store is in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City on March 3, 2023.

Photo:Ted Shaffrey/AP

Amazon's

Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh and

Go conveni-

LOUISE HAMLIN, left, and Chris Wilson, two neighbors who lost their homes in the Eaton Fire, stand for a photo with the remains of their homes in Altadena, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. Photo:Jae C. Hong /AP

RESEARCHERS LINK DEEPSEEK’S BLOCKBUSTER CHATBOT TO CHINESE TELECOM BANNED FROM DOING BUSINESS IN US

By BYRON TAU Associated Press

THE WEBSITE of the Chinese artiﬁcial intelligence company DeepSeek, whose chatbot became the most downloaded app in the United States, has computer code that could send some user login information to a Chinese state-owned telecommunications company that has been barred from operating in the United States, security researchers say.

The web login page of DeepSeek's chatbot contains heavily obfuscated computer script that when deciphered shows connections to computer infrastructure owned by China Mobile, a stateowned telecommunications company. The code appears to be part of the account creation and user login process for DeepSeek.

In its privacy policy, DeepSeek acknowledged storing data on servers inside the People's Republic of China. But its chatbot appears more directly tied to the Chinese state than previously known through the link revealed by researchers to China Mobile. The U.S. has claimed there are close ties between China Mobile and the Chinese military as justiﬁcation for placing limited

“It’s mindboggling that we are unknowingly allowing China to survey Americans and we’re doing nothing about it.”

Ivan Tsarynny

sanctions on the company. DeepSeek and China Mobile did not respond to emails seeking comment.

The growth of Chinesecontrolled digital services has become a major topic of concern for U.S. national security ofﬁcials. Lawmakers in Congress last year on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis voted to force the Chinese parent company of the popular video-sharing app TikTok to divest or face a nationwide ban though the app has since received a 75-day reprieve from President Donald Trump, who is hoping to work out a sale.

The code linking DeepSeek to one of China's leading mobile phone providers was first discovered by Feroot Security, a Canadian cybersecurity company, which shared its findings with The Associated Press. The AP took Feroot's findings to a

second set of computer experts, who independently conﬁrmed that China Mobile code is present. Neither Feroot nor the other researchers observed data transferred to China Mobile when testing logins in North America, but they could not rule out that data for some users was being transferred to the Chinese telecom.

The analysis only applies to the web version of DeepSeek. They did not analyze the mobile version, which remains one of the most downloaded pieces of software on both the Apple and the Google app stores.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission unanimously denied China Mobile authority to operate in the United States in 2019, citing "substantial" national security concerns about links between the company and the Chinese state. In 2021, the Biden administration also issued sanctions limiting the ability of Americans to invest in China Mobile after the Pentagon linked it to the Chinese military.

"It's mindboggling that we are unknowingly allowing China to survey Americans and we're doing nothing about it," said Ivan Tsarynny, CEO of Feroot.

"It's hard to believe that something like this

Workday lays off 1,750 employees, or about 8.5% of its workforce

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS AP Business Writer

WORKDAY is cutting about 1,750 jobs, or 8.5% of its workforce.

In a Wednesday memo to employees, published in a securities ﬁling, Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach said the layoffs were necessary for ongoing growth efforts at the company — including a particular focus on artiﬁcial intelligence investments.

"As we start our new ﬁscal year, we're at a pivotal moment," Eschenbach wrote. "Companies everywhere are reimagining how work gets done, and the increasing demand for AI

has the potential to drive a new era of growth for Workday." Workday aims to notify the majority of employees affected by the cuts on Wednesday. "I realize this is tough news, and it affects all of us," Eschenbach added — encouraging employees to work from or head home for the day. The maker of human resources software also disclosed that it expects to exit certain ofﬁce space, but didn't specify a timeline or which locations may be impacted. Still, Eschenbach's memo notes that the restructuring will work to expand Workday's global reach by "investing

Legal Notice

NOTICE

PAUBA HILLS LIMITED

(In Voluntary Liquidation)

Notice is hereby given that the above-named Company is in dissolution, commencing on the 9th day of December 2024. Articles of Dissolution have been duly registered by the Registrar. Te liquidator is (Amicorp Bahamas Management Limited, whose address is Bahamas Financial Centre, 3rd Floor, Shirley & Charlotte Street, P.O. Box N-4865, Nassau, Bahamas).

Dated this 4th day of February 2025.

(AMICORP BAHAMAS MANAGEMENT LIMITED) LIQUIDATOR

N O T I C E

EXXONMOBIL EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION EQUATORIAL GUINEA (DEEPWATER) LIMITED

Creditors having debts or claims against the above-named Company are required to send particulars thereof to the undersigned c/o P.O. Box N-624, Nassau, Bahamas on or before 28th day of February A.D., 2025. In default thereof they ill be excluded from the beneft of any distribution made by the Liquidator.

Dated the 6th day of February, A.D., 2025.

Gustaaf A. Meijers Liquidator

22777 Springwoods Village Parkway Spring, Texas 77389 U.S.A.

was accidental. There are so many unusual things to this. You know that saying 'Where there's smoke, there's ﬁre'? In this instance, there's a lot of smoke," Tsarynny said.

Stewart Baker, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer and consultant who has previously served as a top ofﬁcial at the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency, said DeepSeek "raises all of the TikTok concerns plus you're talking about information that is highly likely to be of more national security and personal signiﬁcance than anything people do on TikTok," one of the world's most popular social media platforms.

Users are increasingly putting sensitive data into generative AI systems — everything from conﬁdential business information to highly personal details about themselves. People are using generative

in strategic locations." And despite the current layoffs, the maker of human resources software says that it still expects to continue hiring in certain locations and positions over the next year. Workday estimates that it will incur between $230 million and $270 million in charges related to the restructuring plan — primarily in severance payments, employee beneﬁts and other related costs. All employees laid off in the U.S. will be offered a minimum of 12 weeks of pay, with additional weeks based on tenure, Eschenbach said Wednesday, adding that affected workers in other countries

will be offered packages based on local standards. The job cuts at Workday arrive as layoffs continue across the tech sector — including from big names like Intel, Cisco and Apple over the past year — amid a broader wave of industry consolidation. Many companies have turned to restructuring as they grapple with how to stay competitive with evolving consumer spending, while also boosting AI-related investments. Workday plans to release earnings results for its full 2025 ﬁscal year later this month. In the third quarter, the Pleasanton, Californiabased company posted a net income of $193 million and revenue of $2.16 billion — up from a net income of $132 million and revenue of $2.09 billion in the period prior.

Legal Notice NOTICE

TOYOVI LTD. (In Voluntary Liquidation)

Notice is hereby given that the above-named Company is in dissolution, commencing on the 31st day of January 2025. Articles of Dissolution have been duly registered by the Registrar. Te liquidator is (Amicorp Bahamas Management Limited, whose address is Bahamas Financial Centre, 3rd Floor, Shirley & Charlotte Street, P.O. Box N-4865, Nassau, Bahamas).

Dated this 4th day of February 2025.

(AMICORP BAHAMAS MANAGEMENT LIMITED) LIQUIDATOR

N O T I C E

EXXONMOBIL EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION EQUATORIAL GUINEA (OFFSHORE) LIMITED

N O T I C E IS HEREBY GIVEN as follows:

(a) EXXONMOBIL EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION EQUATORIAL GUINEA (OFFSHORE) LIMITED is in dissolution under the provisions of the International Business Companies Act 2000.

(b) The dissolution of the said Company commenced on the 31st day of January 2025 when its Articles of Dissolution were submitted to and registered by the Registrar General.

(c) The Liquidator of the said Company is Gustaaf A. Meijers, of 22777 Springwoods Village Parkway, Spring, Texas 77389, U.S.A.

Dated the 6th day of February, 2025.

HARRY B. SANDS, LOBOSKY MANAGEMENT CO. LTD. Registered Agent for the above-named Company

AI systems for spell-checking, research and even highly personal queries and conversations. The data security risks of such technology are magniﬁed when the platform is owned by a geopolitical adversary and could represent an intelligence goldmine for a country, experts warn.

"The implications of this are signiﬁcantly larger because personal and proprietary information could be exposed. It's like TikTok but at a much grander scale and with more precision. It's not just sharing entertainment videos. It's sharing queries and information that could include highly personal and sensitive business information," said Tsarynny, of Feroot.

Feroot, which specializes in identifying threats on the web, identiﬁed computer code that is downloaded and triggered when a user logs into DeepSeek.

According to the company's

analysis, the code appears to capture detailed information about the device a user logs in from — a process called ﬁngerprinting. Such techniques are widely used by tech companies around the world for security, veriﬁcation and ad targeting.

The company's analysis of the code determined that there were links in that code pointing to China Mobile authentication and identity management computer systems, meaning it could be part of the login process for some users accessing DeepSeek.

The AP asked two academic cybersecurity experts — Joel Reardon of the University of Calgary and Serge Egelman of the University of California, Berkeley — to verify Feroot's ﬁndings. In their independent analysis of the DeepSeek code, they conﬁrmed there were links between the chatbot's login system and China Mobile.

NOTICE

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS COMPANIES ACT, 2000

BNA Smart Systems

Ltd. (IN VOLUNTARY LIQUIDATION)

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that in accordance with section 138(6) of the International Business Companies Act, 2000, as amended, the winding up and dissolution of BNA Smart Systems Ltd. is complete.

Kim D Tompson

Sole Liquidator

Address:

Equity Trust House Caves Village West Bay Street P O Box N-10697 Nassau, Bahamas

N O T I C E

EXXONMOBIL EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION EQUATORIAL GUINEA (DEEPWATER) LIMITED

N O T I C E IS HEREBY GIVEN as follows:

(a) EXXONMOBIL EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION EQUATORIAL GUINEA (DEEPWATER) LIMITED is in dissolution under the provisions of the International Business Companies Act 2000.

(b) The dissolution of the said Company commenced on the 31st day of January 2025 when its Articles of Dissolution were submitted to and registered by the Registrar General.

(c) The Liquidator of the said Company is Gustaaf A. Meijers, of 22777 Springwoods Village Parkway, Spring, Texas 77389, U.S.A.

Dated the 6th day of February, 2025.

HARRY B. SANDS, LOBOSKY MANAGEMENT CO. LTD. Registered Agent for the above-named Company

O T I C E

Creditors having debts or claims against the abovenamed Company are required to send particulars thereof to the undersigned c/o P.O. Box N-624, Nassau, Bahamas on or before 28th day of February A.D., 2025. In default thereof they will be excluded from the beneft of any distribution made by the Liquidator.

Dated the 6th day of February, A.D., 2025. Gustaaf A. Meijers Liquidator 22777 Springwoods Village Parkway Spring, Texas 77389 U.S.A.

THE SMARTPHONE app DeepSeek page is seen on a smartphone screen in Beijing, Jan. 28, 2025.

Photo:Andy Wong/AP

Nonproﬁt’s lawsuit over the federal funding freeze is part of an ‘avalanche’ of litigation

By THALIA BEATY Associated Press

A NEW coalition of nonproﬁts came together overnight to challenge a seemingly sweeping order from the Trump administration last week pausing trillions of dollars in federal funding. They succeeded in blocking that order, at least for now.

It's the start of what nonproﬁts expect will be a deluge of court actions, as civil litigation promises to be a powerful tool civil society groups plan to use to push back on President Donald Trump's policies.

"There will be an avalanche of litigation to stop unlawful activity," said Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which brought the nonprofit coalition's suit against the federal funding freeze. A judge ruled Monday to allow their lawsuit, one of many filed in the first weeks of the new administration, to move forward and extended a temporary restraining order.

More than a dozen federal lawsuits have already been ﬁled against President Trump and his administration by a wide range of nonproﬁts, from several Quaker organizations to the consumer rights group Public Citizen to New Hampshire Indonesian Community Support.

Many considered policy changes under the new administration, but few

contemplated the total suspension of foreign aid or a widespread pause of federal funding. The federal funding freeze was a moment widely viewed by the nonproﬁt sector as an existential crisis. And organizations took a range of approaches from keeping their heads down, to organizing community forums, to ﬁring up supporters to contact Congress.

Diane Yentel, the president and CEO the National Council of Nonproﬁts, moved quickly to take action. She had already been tracking the impact of President Donald Trump's initial executive orders on nonproﬁts when she saw the memo in the evening on Jan. 27.

The Ofﬁce of Management and Budget order

NOTICE

NOTICE is hereby given that BENSON BONHOMME of Infant View Road, New Providence, The Bahamas, applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for Registration Naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/ naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 6th day of February, 2025 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

NOTICE

NOTICE is hereby given that ADDERLY SIMEON of Colony Village, Eastern District, New Providence, The Bahamas, applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for Registration Naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 6th day of February, 2025 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

NOTICE

NOTICE is hereby given that ROLF SEGGER of Ocean Drive, Old Fort Bay, New Providence, Bahamas, applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for Registration Naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/ naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 30th day of January, 2025 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

NOTICE

NOTICE is hereby given that JOHN GARCIA of #3 Babbs Lane, New Providence, Bahamas, applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for Registration Naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/ naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 30th day of January, 2025 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

“We worked throughout the night to pull it all together and be able by 9 a.m. for the attorneys to call the judge in the district court and let them know that there would be a challenge to this order and that we would need to have an emergency hearing that day.”

said: "Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal ﬁnancial assistance."

Posting to LinkedIn that night, Yentel wrote, the OMB memo was, "a potential 5-alarm ﬁre for nonproﬁts and the people and communities they serve," adding, "We won't stand by and let it happen."

Diane Yentel

Within hours, the National Council of Nonproﬁts, Democracy Forward, and several other groups joined forces and hammered out a legal strategy.

"We worked throughout the night to pull it all together and be able by 9 a.m. for the attorneys to call the judge in the district court and let them know that there would be

NOTICE

NOTICE is hereby given that MARLON CANCE of Charleston Street, Ridgeland Park, New Providence, The Bahamas, applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for Registration Naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 6th day of February, 2025 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

NOTICE

NOTICE is hereby given that JOHN SCARLETT of P.O.Box N-4787, Rolle Street, Fox Hill Road, New Providence, The Bahamas, applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for Registration Naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 6th day of February, 2025 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

NOTICE

NOTICE is hereby given that CLAUDIA SEGGER of Ocean Drive, Old Fort Bay, New Providence, Bahamas, applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for Registration Naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/ naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 30th day of January, 2025 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

DIANE YENTEL, president and CEO of

a challenge to this order and that we would need to have an emergency hearing that day," Yentel said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Tom Watson, president and founder of philanthropic consulting ﬁrm CauseWired, was pleased to see the collective action led by the National Council of Nonproﬁts, along with several other groups including the American Public Health Association, Main Street Alliance, which supports small businesses, and SAGE, which serves LGBTQ+ adults.

"I don't think this is a short thunderstorm that we can just ride out and then, everything will be back to normal," Watson said. "I think it's more of a massive tidal wave," that threatens to sweep away the whole ecosystem.

Nonproﬁts and their funders can draw on experiences from the ﬁrst Trump administration and the COVID-19 pandemic — which created similar upheaval. But many see the federal funding freeze as unprecedented.

Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said access to some of the platforms where nonproﬁt organizations receive funding was cut off even before the deadline the Trump administration set in its memo, increasing the sense of confusion and panic.

Her organization called on people to contact their representatives in Congress to provide them

information about the consequences of this potential funding freeze. At least 10,000 people used their electronic contact form to reach members of Congress, NAEH reported last week.

Grace Bonilla, president of United Way of New York City, which receives state and local government funding to support food pantries at hundreds of small organizations in New York City, said those organizations are already impacted not just by concerns about funding freezes, but by the administration's other policies, like increased immigration enforcement, for example.

"It's week three," she said, referring to the start of the Trump administration. Bonilla said she's been constantly talking with other nonproﬁt leaders, funders and corporations about how they should respond. For now, many are just waiting to see what happens next, she said.

"People are painfully aware about what this means, not just to their bottom line budget, but what it means in the cost of people, the number of people that are going to be hurt by any of these things actually coming to fruition," she said.

Bonilla said it's hard for leaders of nonproﬁts and others in the private sector to say, "This is the thing that we're going to stand behind," because they don't know what will come next.

"I would say that our elected ofﬁcials need to be braver," she added.

NOTICE

NOTICE is hereby given that AUSTIN EUGENE of Bellot Road, New Providence, The Bahamas, applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for Registration Naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 6th day of February, 2025 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

NOTICE

NOTICE is hereby given that HARRY ALOUIDOR of Kemp Road, New Providence, The Bahamas, applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for Registration Naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 6th day of February, 2025 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

the National Council of Nonproﬁts, poses for a photograph in Washington, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025.

Photo:Nick Wass/AP

VA NURSES ARE IN SHORT SUPPLY. UNIONS SAY TRUMP'S DEFERRED RESIGNATION PLAN COULD MAKE THINGS WORSE

By CARLA K. JOHNSON and BRIAN WITTE Associated Press

FOR the federal government's largest group of employees — nurses caring for military veterans through the Department of Veterans Affairs — the Trump administration's deferred resignation offer and its looming Thursday deadline come amid longstanding stafﬁng shortages, deemed severe at more than half of all facilities.

Unions are discouraging nurses from accepting the offer, and leaders say an exodus would directly and immediately affect the care of its 9.1 million enrolled veterans.

"We're already facing a stafﬁng crisis in our hospitals," said Irma Westmoreland, a registered nurse who heads the Veterans Affairs unit for National Nurses United.

"We cannot afford to lose any more staff."

Nurses for the VA — the federal government's largest employer — comprise the biggest single group of federal workers, numbering more than 100,000 and accounting for 5% of all full-time permanent

employees, according to an Associated Press analysis of personnel data.

Union ofﬁcial Mary-Jean Burke said she's taken calls from nurses and other VA workers from across the country. At ﬁrst, she said, some thought the buyout plan sounded attractive, but second thoughts have set in.

"Originally, I think people were like, 'I'm out of here,'" said Burke,

a physical therapist and American Federation of Government Employees leader. As more information came from the U.S. Ofﬁce of Personnel Management, it started sounding "a little bit too good to be true and people were hesitant."

VA nurses are somewhat older than the rest of the workforce, with 16.2% of nurses 55 and older,

compared with 14.6% for the rest of the federal workforce, AP's analysis shows. Burke said some workers who are retirement eligible have been "on the fence" about the offer, which promises pay through Sept. 30, though there have been broad concerns about the program's legality.

Nurses were confused at ﬁrst, and now they're angry, Westmoreland said.

North Carolina lawmakers propose next Helene package that’s half the price of the governor’s

By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press

NORTH Carolina

Republican lawmakers on Wednesday unveiled their initial attempt this year to boost recovery funding for Hurricane Helene's historic ﬂooding, proposing new spending that totals less than half of what new Democratic Gov. Josh Stein requested this week.

A House committee reviewed but did not vote on the $500 million spending proposal, which would include money for some of the programs Stein sought funding for in his request Monday for $1.07 billion in new recovery spending.

Last fall, the state legislature appropriated well over $900 million for relief and rebuilding efforts. A couple of hundred million additional dollars previously earmarked for Helene relief purposes would help pay for the packages from Stein and House Republicans.

GOP legislative leaders and Stein have made enacting a funding bill early in the General Assembly session — rather than waiting until the traditional state government budget that takes effect July 1 gets negotiated — a top priority. Stein and lawmakers expect to seek more recovery funds later this year.

"We know that no matter what appropriation we're able to do, it's never going to be enough," Rep. John Bell of Wayne County, a cochair of the House Helene recovery committee, told colleagues. "But this is a starting point, with multiple bills after this to follow."

The competing proposals both include $150 million to kickstart a home reconstruction and repair program in the mountains while they await federal funds for the same purpose to aririve. And they both contain money — albeit in differing amounts and portions — to help farmers and to rebuild private roads and bridges.

North Carolina state ofﬁcials reported over 100 deaths from Helene with 74,000 homes and thousands of miles in both state-maintained and private roads damaged. State ofﬁcials projected the late September storm caused a record $59.6 billion in damages and recovery needs.

Congressional legislation approved in December and other federal actions are projected to provide over $15 billion to North Carolina for rebuilding.

Bell told reporters that the $500 million ﬁgure could rise as Senate counterparts get involved in negotiations later. But he said the House would act strategically to maximize

COMMONWEALTH OF THE BAHAMAS IN THE SUPREME COURT

Probate Side

In the Estate of Manuel Lopez late of #47 Bamboo Cay, Bahama Terrace Yacht and Country Club, Freeport, Grand Bahama, The Bahamas.

NOTICE is hereby given that all persons having any claim or demand against the above Estate are required to send the same duly certiﬁed in writing to the undersigned on or before March 21, 2025 after which date the Administrator will proceed to distribute the assets having regard only to the claims of which they shall have had notice:

AND NOTICE is hereby given that all persons indebted to the said estate are requested to make full settlement on or before the date hereinbefore mentioned.

GOUTHRO & CO.

Attorneys for the Administrator

P.O Box F-60452

Chancery Court, The Mall Drive, Freeport, Grand Bahama The Bahamas

federal matching funds and to ensure the state doesn't repeat errors from previous hurricane recovery efforts.

Bell and others have cited issues with the program developed in the preceding administration of Gov. Roy Cooper to rebuild homes after Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018. The program still needs $217 million to ﬁnish construction on more than 1,100 eastern North Carolina homes.

Committee co-chair Rep. Dudley Greene of Avery

County, who suffered property damage from Helene, said that western North Carolina still doesn't know for sure what money will be made available for repairs and how it will be distributed.

"Hopefully, this is a ﬁrst step in trying to alleviate some of that confusion," Greene said.

Creating a consensus plan will pose an early test of Stein's relationship with Republican lawmakers, who control the legislature but narrowly

Official communication on the offer has implied the nurses are not productive, she said, and that's insulted those she's talked to. A follow-up questionand-answer email from the Office of Personnel Management encouraged federal employees to find a job in the private sector.

"The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector," the email said.

Burke said she's been asked by workers about the ﬂurry of other executive orders, too.

"I can tell you here in Indiana and other places, people are really frightened about the chaos, the chaos they kind of feel around them," Burke said.

The department's leadership also has expressed concern about the potential impact on nursing in the VA, she said. More than 80% of facilities are experiencing a severe nursing shortage, according to a 2024 report from the

lack a veto-proof majority following the November elections.

The House committee was expected to consider amendments next week, with a ﬂoor vote soon after.

Senate Republicans ﬁled their own placeholder disaster relief bill on Wednesday. The House bill omits entirely Stein's request for $150 million for two business grant programs designed to provide up to $75,000 to companies that suffered signiﬁcant sales and economic losses and or physical damages.

Many Republicans previously have expressed reservations about the state providing direct grants to businesses, rather than

VA Ofﬁce of Inspector General.

"They're scared, too," she said. "They know that they have to follow the president's orders, per se, but then you hear the caveat, like, 'Hey, if ﬁve nurses take the buyout, we don't have an OR anymore.' That's in the dialogue of conversation."

The VA did not respond to an email seeking comment.

In an email sent Wednesday by the Office of Personnel Management, officials ramped up pressure on federal workers to accept the financial incentives to resign.

"Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward," the email said.

Burke said she is worried about the federal workforce more broadly.

"I know it's going to look different," she said. "A lot of people are stressed out because they kind of feel like the predictability of their mission is a little bit different."

loans. Bell told reporters that a grant program could surface later in the bill process.

The House package also does not contain Stein's $100 million request to recompense local governments in the mountains for lost or spent revenues nor his $34 million appeal to provide summer school in public school districts that lost at least 15 instructional days shortly after Helene's rampage.

Stein said this week that funds are needed now to prevent housing construction delays, more business closings and students falling behind academically.

THE SEAL is seen at the Department of Veterans Affairs building in Washington, June 21, 2013. Photo:Charles Dharapak/AP

Most of Wall Street rises as earnings reporting season ramps up

By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer

WALL Street drifted higher Wednesday as gains for most stocks outweighed drops for Alphabet and some other big-name companies following their latest proﬁt reports.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% following mixed trading across European and Asian markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 317 points, or 0.7%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.2%.

Toymaker Mattel jumped 15.3% after blowing past analysts' forecasts for proﬁt in the latest quarter. Strength for its Hot Wheels brand helped make up for some softness for Barbie and other dolls. Mattel also gave a forecast for proﬁt this upcoming year that topped analysts' expectations.

Amgen rallied 6.5% and was one of the strongest forces pushing upward on the S&P 500. It reported

stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected, thanks in part to growth for its Repatha medicine, which can lower bad cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart attack. They helped offset a 7.3% drop for Alphabet, which sank even though Google's parent company reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Investors focused instead on slowing growth for its cloud business, whose revenue fell short of forecasts. They also homed in on the $75 billion Alphabet is budgeting for investments this year, roughly $15 billion more than analysts expected, as it remains in the rush to develop artificial-intelligence technology. Advanced Micro Devices fell 6.3% even though the chip company edged past profit expectations for the latest quarter. While analysts called AMD's results solid, they also asked why CEO Lisa Su did not give

more detail about expectations for the performance of its AI offerings specifically. Investors always want companies to deliver bigger profits, but the hopes may be even higher than usual given worries about how much faster stock prices have climbed than corporate profits, causing critics to call them expensive. Uncertainty is also hanging over the global economy because of President Donald Trump's tariffs.

After rocking ﬁnancial markets around the world at the start of this week, worries about a potentially punishing global trade war have eased a bit after Trump gave 30-day reprieves for tariffs on both Mexico and Canada. That bolstered traders' hopes that Trump sees tariffs as merely a tool for negotiation, rather than as a long-term policy.

Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle says a further extension may happen, but he sees the

tariff risk for both countries likely remaining until the end of a review of the United States' existing trade agreement with the two countries, which could be in the middle of next year. In the meantime, Trump has pressed ahead with tariffs on Chinese goods, and Mericle expects tariffs to hit autos from the European Union, among other potential moves. That could drive a one-time boost to inﬂation, which could leave a widely followed measure of underlying inﬂation trends at 2.6% in December, above the Federal Reserve's target of 2%.

One of the fears hurting Wall Street is that the upward pressure on inﬂation could keep the Fed from cutting interest rates this year, after it began doing so in September in order to relax pressure on the economy and give the job market some help.

Yields in the bond market fell Wednesday after a

report said growth for mining, ﬁnance and other U.S. services businesses was weaker last month than economists expected. The survey by the Institute for Supply Management found many businesses citing poor weather conditions.

Businesses also "mentioned preparations or concerns related to potential U.S. government tariff actions; however, there was little mention of current business impacts as a result," according to Steve Miller, chair of the ISM's Services Business Survey Committee.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.42% from 4.52% late Tuesday.

On Wall Street, the Walt Disney Company swung from an early gain to a loss of 2.4% after delivering a better proﬁt for the latest quarter than analysts expected, thanks in part to a strong performance for its " Moana 2 " movie.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 23.60 points to 6,061.48.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 317.24 to 44,873.28, and the Nasdaq composite added 38.31 to 19,692.33.

MicroStrategy, the company that's been raising cash with the express purpose of buying bitcoin, fell 2.2% ahead of its earnings report, which arrived after trading ended for the day. It also announced a name change to Strategy as part of a simpliﬁcation of its brand to highlight its status as what it calls a "Bitcoin Treasury Company." In stock markets abroad, European indexes were mixed amid relatively modest movements. In Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.9%, while South Korea's Kospi gained 1.1%. Japan's Nikkei 225 edged up 0.1% as Honda Motor Co. jumped after Japanese media reports said its talks to set up a joint holding company with rival Nissan Motor Corp. were unraveling. Nissan's stock fell 4.9%.

MARINE FORECAST

Fake papers are contaminating the world’s scientiﬁc literature, fueling a corrupt industry and slowing legitimate lifesaving medical research

Frederik Joelving Associated Press

OVER the past decade, furtive commercial entities around the world have industrialized the production, sale and dissemination of bogus scholarly research, undermining the literature that everyone from doctors to engineers rely on to make decisions about human lives.

It is exceedingly difﬁcult to get a handle on exactly how big the problem is.

Around 55,000 scholarly papers have been retracted to date, for a variety of reasons, but scientists and companies who screen the scientiﬁc literature for telltale signs of fraud estimate that there are many more fake papers circulating –possibly as many as several hundred thousand. This fake research can confound legitimate researchers who must wade through dense equations, evidence, images and methodologies only to ﬁnd that they were made up.

Even when the bogus papers are spotted – usually by amateur sleuths on their own time – academic journals are often slow to retract the papers, allowing the articles to taint what many consider sacrosanct: the vast global library of scholarly work that introduces new ideas, reviews other research and discusses ﬁndings.

These fake papers are slowing down research that has helped millions of people with lifesaving medicine and therapies from cancer to COVID-

19. Analysts' data shows that ﬁelds related to cancer and medicine are particularly hard hit, while areas like philosophy and art are less affected. Some scientists have abandoned their life's work because they cannot keep pace given the number of fake papers they must bat down.

The problem reﬂects a worldwide commodiﬁcation of science. Universities, and their research funders, have long used regular publication in academic journals as requirements for promotions and job security, spawning the mantra "publish or perish."

But now, fraudsters have infiltrated the academic publishing industry to prioritize profits over scholarship. Equipped with technological prowess, agility and vast networks of corrupt researchers, they are churning out papers on everything from obscure genes to artificial intelligence in medicine.

These papers are absorbed into the worldwide library of research faster than they can be weeded out. About 119,000 scholarly journal articles and conference papers are published globally every week, or more than 6 million a year. Publishers estimate that, at most journals, about 2% of the papers submitted – but not necessarily published – are likely fake, although this number can be much higher at some publications.

While no country is immune to this practice, it is particularly pronounced in emerging economies where resources to do bona ﬁde science are limited – and where governments, eager to compete on a global scale, push particularly strong "publish or perish" incentives.

As a result, there is a bustling online underground economy for all things scholarly publishing. Authorship, citations, even academic journal editors, are up for sale. This fraud is so prevalent that it has its own name: paper mills, a phrase that harks back to "term-paper mills," where students cheat by getting someone else to write a class paper for them.

The impact on publishers is profound. In high-proﬁle cases, fake articles can hurt a journal's bottom line. Important scientiﬁc indexes – databases of academic publications that many researchers rely on to do their work – may delist journals that publish too many compromised papers. There is growing criticism that legitimate publishers could do more to track and blacklist journals

and authors who regularly publish fake papers that are sometimes little more than artiﬁcial intelligencegenerated phrases strung together.

To better understand the scope, ramiﬁcations and potential solutions of this metastasizing assault on science, we – a contributing editor at Retraction Watch,

a website that reports on retractions of scientiﬁc papers and related topics, and two computer scientists at France's Université Toulouse III–Paul Sabatier and Université Grenoble Alpes who specialize in detecting bogus publications – spent six months investigating paper mills.

This included, by some of us at different times, trawling websites and social media posts, interviewing publishers, editors, research-integrity experts, scientists, doctors, sociologists and scientiﬁc sleuths engaged in the Sisyphean task of cleaning up the literature. It also involved, by some of us, screening scientiﬁc articles looking for signs of fakery. Problematic Paper

Screener: Trawling for fraud in the scientiﬁc literature What emerged is a deeprooted crisis that has many researchers and policymakers calling for a new way for universities and many governments to evaluate and reward academics and health professionals across the globe. Just as highly biased websites dressed up to look like objective reporting are gnawing away at evidence-based journalism and threatening elections, fake science is grinding down the knowledge base on which modern society rests.