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Australia's wicketkeeper Matthew Wade celebrates the dismissal of opener Phil Salt, after which England’s run chase stalled. Photograph: Ricardo Mazalán/AP It was supposed to be a game of relatively little consequence, the Ashes rivalry laid on for the sake of the broadcasters amid an expectation that England and Australia would sweep aside the associate teams in Group B. As the two seeds, they would swan into predetermined slots in the Super Eight stage. But by following Tuesday’s washout against Scotland with a heavy 36-run defeat to their oldest rivals in sweltering Bridgetown, Jos Buttler’s defending champions have been plunged into a world of net run-rate calculations and weather forecasts when they meet Oman and Namibia in Antigua over the next week. Even dispensing with those two by heavy margins may not be enough. Australia, already a victory over Oman to the good before this one, will be chuckling at the predicament that England now find themselves in. Making 201 for seven after being stuck in – the highest total of the tournament to date – Mitch Marsh and his side then slammed the brakes on England to restrict them to 165 for six. Pat Cummins, returning to the side, sent down a masterful two for 23 from four overs, while Adam Zampa spun his way to two for 28. It was a classic shutdown against an England side that, beyond Buttler (42 from 28) and Phil Salt (37 from 23) up top, looked short on time in the middle and feeling the pressure overall. Jonny Bairstow had a particularly poor game, a shoddy outing in the field followed by scratching out seven from 13 balls. Having arrived at 92 for two in the 10th over – thus needing the same 109 in 10 England claimed they could have chased against Scotland – this was an opportunity missed. Although in truth, England were always behind in this one after David Warner (39 from 16) and Travis Head (34 from 18) ransacked 70 runs inside the first five overs. This lively start certainly underlined the difficulty of bowling from the Malcolm Marshall End, with a short off-side boundary – around 60 metres – and a strong cross-wind blowing into it. Spectators in the Greenidge and Haynes Stand were very much in the game here. David Warner’s powerful hitting put England on the back foot early on. Photograph: Ash Allen/Reuters Those conditions also made it all the more baffling that, after a tight first over from Moeen Ali, Buttler asked the far less experienced off-spinner, Will Jacks, to share the new ball and defend that trickier end. His more loopy fare was utterly manhandled for 22 runs – solar panels on the roof of the stand smashed along the way – with this figure then repeated when Buttler instantly swapped him out for the pace of Mark Wood and saw three more sixes soar. Buttler claimed afterwards that Jacks was a call based on “gut feel” – not data – but it set the tone for a scrappy time in the field. The captain also spent so much time running from wicketkeeper to speak to his bowlers that he was penalised for slow play, Chris Jordan forced to bowl the 20th over with only three men outside the circle. Jofra Archer returning one for 28 from four overs – Head bowled by a slower ball after Moeen had castled Warner – felt a triumph in the circumstances. But Australia’s middle order had plenty of breathing room after that breakneck start, regular wickets scarcely proving to be setbacks as they crashed all but three of their 14 sixes with the wind. That said, Glenn Maxwell, who struggled for rhythm in a 25-ball 28, delivered one outrageous, deliberately sliced six into it. He always was a player to take things in a different direction. Zampa is another and after Salt and Buttler threw some early counterpunches at the seamers, the leg-spinner’s dual removal of both openers triggered the asphyxiation that followed. The first was a fine piece of bowling, Zampa firing in a quick, flat delivery first up to castle Salt. Buttler, slightly penned in, then perished attempting to reverse sweep him over backward point. Thereafter only Moeen managed to truly swing freely, his 15-ball 25 the only pushback as Cummins and Josh Hazlewood bowled smartly to the ground’s dimensions. When the latter had Bairstow caught trying to thrash his way out of the funk it was in effect over. England, desperate to change the tune after that bleak 50-over World Cup last winter, are once again in a bit of strife. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jun/08/australia-england-t20-world-cup-match-report

Parakeets wait for snacks in St James's Park, London. Photograph: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/Shutterstock Yet another opinion poll was published last week, focusing on British people’s attitudes towards new arrivals on our shores. They didn’t get here on small boats, and they won’t feature in the TV election debates. They’re not human beings, but birds: ring-necked parakeets. Nevertheless, they are highly divisive, with the poll revealing that the colourful creatures prompt reactions from downright hostility, through grudging acceptance, to a warm welcome. Almost 4,000 UK residents were interviewed for the online survey, published in the open-access journal NeoBiota. Researchers from Imperial College London, the Universities of Exeter and Brighton and the British Trust for Ornithology discovered that 90% were aware of the gaudy birds, and just over half knew the name of the species, which is also known as the rose-ringed parakeet, after its pink and grey neck ring. The vast majority of people – roughly five out of six – consider parakeets aesthetically pleasing, yet at the same time almost half have negative opinions about them. In rural areas, this rises to almost two-thirds, with some suggesting that these noisy, screeching birds disturb the bucolic peace – hence the title of the research paper, Not in the countryside please! Age also makes a difference: older respondents are far more hostile to the birds than younger ones, who mostly accept their presence, especially in London, their main stronghold. Comments varied from “very colourful and interesting to see”, to “a pain in the backside – so intrusively noisy”, which can’t really be argued with. Newspaper columnist Hugo Rifkind once likened them to young men on a stag do. Others welcome them as a splash of colour in what they see as nature-depleted urban environments. I’ve been aware of these exotic birds for almost half a century. In the late 1970s, only a decade after they first began to colonise Britain, I caught sight of one near my childhood home, on the outskirts of west London. To say it stood out among the drab suburban birdlife would be an understatement. Ring-necked parakeets remained fairly scarce for decades, but from the late 1990s onwards numbers began to rise exponentially. Twenty years ago, when my youngest offspring were born, we lived in a small house in the London suburbs, with a tiny garden. The parakeets soon discovered our bird feeders, and would happily stay put even as the children played only feet away from them. Today I see – or more often hear – them almost anywhere I go in London. They are also found in cities elsewhere in the UK, but their preference for gathering each evening in large communal roosts has limited their spread – I’ve yet to see one in my adopted home of Somerset. Jimi Hendrix was not responsible for the arrival of parakeets. Photograph: Bruce Fleming/Rex Features Over the years, I’ve heard many myths about how they got here in the first place. “They were released by a stoned Jimi Hendrix, who let them out in London’s Carnaby Street…”; “They escaped from the film set of The African Queen…”; “They made a bid for freedom when their cage broke during the Great Storm of 1987…” But as Nick Hunt and Tim Mitchell point out in their entertaining and informative book The Parakeeting of London: An Adventure in Gonzo Ornithology, all these apparently convincing stories are urban myths. Hunt and Mitchell were actually the first to investigate people’s response to these exotic new arrivals, speaking to those who were surprised to come across them in their local neighbourhood. The truth about the parakeets’ presence here is rather a letdown: as po[CENSORED]r cagebirds, it was inevitable some would escape. And because they live in the foothills of the Himalayas, they are easily able to cope with the worst of the British winter, and not just survive, but thrive. There are genuine concerns about the birds’ ecological impact, including the devastation that a flock can wreak on fruit crops. They could also harm native species, by competing for nest-holes with jackdaws, stock doves and starlings. Conversely, London’s growing po[CENSORED]tion of peregrines are delighted by the arrival of the parakeets, whose slow, direct flight makes them far easier to catch than the faster and more manoeuvrable pigeons. Numbers are rising, too. The latest po[CENSORED]tion estimate, from the British Trust for Ornithology, suggests a UK breeding po[CENSORED]tion of 12,000 pairs, a 10-fold increase in the past 30 years. If this exponential rise continued, then by the end of this century parakeets would rival the wren as our commonest bird. Fortunately, perhaps, the signs are that their numbers have finally begun to level out. Nevertheless, conservationists are keeping a close eye on the expansion of the species. Although I appreciate the ecological arguments against these birds, and have some sympathy with the suggestion that they should be culled to avoid problems in the future, I also have a real soft spot for them. And on a winter’s evening, when a hundred-strong flock streaks across the darkening sky like a green meteor, I can’t help admiring their sheer chutzpah, and be thankful for the way they brighten up our dull city lives. Stephen Moss is an author and naturalist, based in Somerset. His latest book is Ten Birds that Changed the World (Guardian Faber, £16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. How worried should we be about the climate? We asked every expert we could Every day we interview the world’s leading climate scientists about the state of the world. These experts are increasingly alarmed, terrified about the future and furious their warnings continue to be ignored. For a one-of-a-kind reporting project, we set about trying to measure just how worried they are. Environment editor Damian Carrington contacted 843 senior authors of recent reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN’s expert body. The high number of responses we received – 380 – reflected the strength of their alarm. Close to half of the experts anticipate at least 3C of global heating, a cataclysmic prospect. We understand that reports such as this can lead to a feeling of despair. However, as some scientists pointed out, hope lies in ensuring we keep ourselves and the next generation well informed so that we can push those in power to make decisions that will benefit our planet. The Guardian’s environment team works tirelessly to expose the impact commercial and political greed is having on our planet. It can be difficult, but we believe it is the greatest priority of our time. With help from our readers this work can continue and grow. If you can, please consider supporting our journalism today. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/09/how-parakeets-escaped-and-made-britain-their-home

More than 92,600 people have been displaced from their villages in south Lebanon by the attacks, according to the IOM. Four-year-old Merve has serious burns on her body due to phosphorus used by Israel on Gaza, according to doctors, shown here being treated at El Arish Hospital in El Arish, Egypt on November 15, 2023 [Burcu Calik Gocumlu/Anadolu via Getty Images] As Al Jazeera reported in March, Israel continues to use white phosphorus munitions in south Lebanon, causing lasting damage and driving villagers away even as Israeli officials threaten a war across their northern border. A new report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) concurs, showing that white phosphorus attacks are “putting civilians at grave risk” and “contributing to displacement”. More than 92,600 people have been displaced from their villages in south Lebanon since October 6, according to the International Organization for Migration. “Israel’s use of airburst white phosphorus munitions in po[CENSORED]ted areas indiscriminately harms civilians and has led many to leave their homes,” Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at HRW, said in the report. ‘Lucifer’s jaw’ In their investigation, HRW also verified the use of white phosphorus munitions by the Israeli military in at least 17 municipalities across south Lebanon since October 2023, when Israel’s war on Gaza began. They verified the illegal use of airburst munitions over po[CENSORED]ted residential areas in the municipalities of Kfar Kila, Meiss el-Jabal, Boustane, Markaba and Aita al-Shaab. White phosphorus injuries can be severely painful and necrotic. Oxides can reignite in the skin unless the burns are covered immediately and kept covered to prevent any exposure to oxygen. Sabbah Abu Halima, who is suffering from very deep burns on her arm and leg, lies on a bed at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, January 22, 2009. The doctors treating Abu Halima said the burns were from white phosphorus incendiary shells used by the Israeli army [Jerry Lampen/Reuters] Other symptoms may include severe respiratory problems, acute lung injury, severe eye damage, second or third-degree burns, or even severe bone diseases, such as the necrotic “Lucifer’s jaw”. At least 173 people have been injured by exposure to white phosphorus between October and late May, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health. Among those are verified cases of civilians who were rushed to a hospital on October 15 for asphyxiation after coming in contact with the phosphorus. And reported cases of white phosphorus continued into June. In a March investigation into Israeli use of white phosphorus in southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera was told by Lebanese experts that Israel was attempting to create a buffer zone by making the region uninhabitable and impossible to cultivate. Agriculture accounts for up to 80 percent of south Lebanon’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to the United Nations. Al Jazeera’s investigation found that Israel had dropped 117 phosphoric bombs on southern Lebanon, striking at least 32 towns and villages between October and March. The impacted area spanned nearly the entirety of Lebanon’s 100km (62-mile) southern border. Israel’s repeated use of white phosphorous has drawn the ire of international rights organisations. On March 19, Oxfam and HRW called on the Biden administration to “immediately suspend arms transfers to Israel.” Loopholes on white phosphorous The documented use of white phosphorus has renewed calls from rights organisations to close the loopholes that see it used in po[CENSORED]ted areas. “Israel’s widespread use of white phosphorus in south Lebanon highlights the need for stronger international law on incendiary weapons,” the HRW report said. The HRW report urged Lebanon to file a declaration with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to enable an investigation and prosecution “of grave international crimes…on Lebanese territory since October 2023”. Neither Lebanon nor Israel are members of the ICC. The court would need a formal declaration from one of the parties to investigate. Lebanon recently walked back an earlier statement that it would give the ICC jurisdiction to investigate Israeli war crimes on its territory post-October 7. Lebanon’s caretaker government voted in April for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to file such a declaration of jurisdiction. When the decision was withdrawn, some analysts speculated that Lebanese parties feared an ICC investigation might also hold them liable. Israel has a history of using white phosphorus in Lebanon, lending credence to the “buffer zone” theory, according to observers. White phosphorus fired by Israel is seen on the Israel-Lebanon border, November 12, 2023 [Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters] “The Israeli army targeted civilians with white phosphorus in the 1982 invasion and, since October 7, there has been a lot of white phosphorus used on forests, plantations, olive and fruit trees,” Mohammad Hussein, head of South Lebanon’s Agricultural Union, told Al Jazeera in March. There were also documented uses of white phosphorus munition during Israel’s siege of western Beirut in 1982. After rights groups accused Israel of war crimes for its use of white phosphorus in its 2008-09 Gaza offensive, the Israeli military said it would start using it as smokescreen munitions in built-up areas, with unspecified exceptions. “Stronger international standards against the use of white phosphorus are needed to ensure these weapons do not continue to endanger civilians,” Kaiss said. “Israel’s recent use of white phosphorus in Lebanon should motivate other countries to take immediate action toward this goal.” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/9/israels-attacking-lebanon-with-white-phosphorous-causing-lasting-harm-hrw

The decision by Harvard to delay degrees for 13 students for one year has caused outrage at the university and a mass walkout from its graduation ceremony. Asmer Asrar Safi (left) and Shraddha Joshi (right) were among 13 Harvard students honoured with a 'mock graduation' ceremony hosted by the Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP) coalition, which was leading campus protests against the war in Gaza [Courtesy of Shraddha Joshi] More than two weeks have passed since the graduates’ commencement ceremony for 2024 at Harvard University, but Asmer Asrar Safi is still waiting to receive the degree for which he spent four years studying. “The situation remains as is, unfortunately,” he tells Al Jazeera from Boston, United States. Besides Safi, who is originally from Lahore, Pakistan, another 12 students find themselves in the same situation: they are all graduating students at one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world but will not be awarded their degrees for at least one year. Harvard Corporation, the university’s top governing body, barred these students from receiving their degrees during this year’s graduation ceremony on May 23 on account of their involvement in the three-week pro-Palestine encampment at the university last month. “I am waiting for my appeals decision to come out,” 23-year-old Safi, an international student of social studies and ethnicity, migration and rights at Harvard College, says. “I am a Rhodes Scholar and trying to ascertain if I can matriculate at the University of Oxford given that my Harvard degree has been withheld for a year, even though I have met all the academic conditions for my programme and have completed my degree requirements.” Shraddha Joshi is another student who will not be able to receive her degree, despite having the backing of her faculty at Harvard College, where she was studying in the same programme as Safi. “After having completed the appeal application on my end, we seem to be in a limbo as we wait for communication from the university. Students and faculty members are all quite confused by the ambiguity of the process, and the timeline for appeals is unclear,” she told Al Jazeera. Born and raised in Texas, Joshi had been planning to pursue a master’s degree in sociology in the United Kingdom, but says her future is now uncertain. “I was supposed to go to the University of Cambridge with the Harvard-UK Fellowship, but my plans are now in flux due to my degree status. The lack of transparency and poor communication from administrators make it difficult to predict what our next steps will look like,” she says. Academic freedom and the right to protest Like many other academic institutions in the US, Harvard University has found itself caught up in an increasingly angry debate about academic freedom and the right to protest over Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. Having served as Harvard’s president for just six months, Claudine Gay resigned from the position in January this year, following her appearance at a congressional testimony about “rising anti-Semitism” on the college campus in December 2023. The encampment at Harvard University lasted for three weeks [Courtesy of Shraddha Joshi] In her resignation letter, Gay, the university’s first Black president and only the second woman to take the role in its 388-year history, cited personal attacks “fuelled by racial animus”. Her resignation came following pressure on her to step down as she also faced allegations of plagiarism about her academic work which surfaced soon after the congressional hearing. In April, students at Columbia University, an Ivy League college in New York, began an encampment on their campus grounds in protest against the Israeli war on Gaza. They demanded that their university divest from companies linked to or doing business with Israel. The protest movement grew rapidly across the country, with encampments appearing at more than 30 other universities, including Harvard, where the student protest encampment began on April 24. The demand by students at the Harvard encampment, much like the rest of the college campuses in the US, was for a full disclosure of Harvard’s investments in companies linked to Israel and divestment from those companies. Following negotiations between the university administration and the Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP) coalition, which was leading the protest, the encampment was disbanded on May 14. To reach an agreement to end the encampment, Harvard, which had placed more than 20 students on “involuntary leave”, agreed to begin the process of reinstating those students and offered protesters a meeting with members of the university’s governing boards about divestment. On May 14, Harvard interim president Alan Garber said: “With the disruption to the educational environment caused by the encampment now abated, I will ask that the schools promptly initiate applicable reinstatement proceedings for all individuals who have been placed on involuntary leaves of absence. I will also ask disciplinary boards within each school to evaluate expeditiously, according to their existing practices and precedents, the cases of those who participated in the encampment.” The protesting students accepted this outcome and decided to disband the encampment. “As the protest tactic exhausted its utility, we realised that it was best to shift gears and move forward with organising along different lines,” says Shafi. “Yet, while we stuck to our half of the agreement, the university did not and continued to discipline all of us in unprecedented ways.” Joshi, who was not a camper herself but acted as a liaison with the college administration on behalf of the protesters, was among the group of more than 20 students who were placed on “involuntary leave” and asked to leave the Harvard campus. Despite the university’s promise to begin reinstating those students, however, she says: “On May 17, I was told verbally that Harvard’s administrative board had chosen to place me on probation until May 2025, withholding my degree until then. This decision was confirmed in writing on Monday, May 20, affecting myself and 12 others.” When Al Jazeera asked Harvard University to explain this decision, a spokesman said: “I will refer you to President Garber’s communication written to the representatives of those participating in the encampment. It does not speak to the outcome of disciplinary processes, rather it indicates he would encourage disciplinary bodies to move their processes forward expeditiously, in line with their existing precedents and practices.” Centring ‘complicity’ Student protesters at Harvard say the emergence of the solidarity encampment on their campus was not an “isolated event”. The student encampment at Harvard University was attended by hundreds of students from different schools of Harvard [Courtesy of Shraddha Joshi] There had been numerous vigils, awareness campaigns as well as protest rallies across the campus, with the pro-Palestine students organising events that were more focused on educational and cultural events, even prior to the October 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel. Post-October, the group’s advocacy efforts have been mostly centred on protesting against “Harvard’s complicity” in the events in Gaza. Safi says he has been working on pro-Palestine causes at the Harvard campus since 2020, helping organise various events. “Shraddha and I have planned various events regarding our divestment campaign, which has grown tremendously over the last few months, with students being forced to contend with the university’s complicity in the crimes committed against Palestinians,” he says. Joshi adds that the students faced a large amount of harassment and pressure from counter-protesters, which she says was part of a broader trend of anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim racism and discrimination. The faces and identities of some protesters were posted to social media accounts opposed to the protests. “We had trucks on Harvard campus doxing us, targeting pro-Palestine students, with our names and faces being paraded on campus, and none of this was condemned or stopped by the university,” says Joshi. Harvard University told Al Jazeera that it does take this sort of harassment seriously. A spokesman pointed to the fact that in January, President Garber announced a new Presidential Task Force on Combatting Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Bias. Previously, in October last year, a university-wide message was sent out by Executive Vice President Meredith Weenick acknowledging safety concerns among Muslim students and “clearly stating that we do not condone or ignore intimidation or threats or acts of harassment or violence”. This is not enough, say the protesters. “Students do not simply protest for fun or to make noise without reason. Students across Harvard chose to establish the encampment only when all avenues were exhausted and having doors slammed in their faces when they mentioned Palestine,” Joshi adds. Safi says the decision to establish an encampment was in line with other protest movements on Harvard’s campus in the past, including protests that called for divestment from apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, among others. “It is this repression, and this unwillingness to initiate conversations on the part of the administration, that led to the establishment of the encampment. Yet, we have only seen the repression worsen since the establishment of the Gaza solidarity encampment,” he adds. As the wave of protests across US college campuses picked up pace and grew in strength earlier this year, some college administrators resorted to using force, calling in law enforcement to disperse protesters and encampments. While the administration at Harvard did not call in police, Joshi says that the encampment, which lasted for three weeks, ended with an agreement to decamp peacefully on the understanding that there would be a “good faith effort” from university administrators to process student disciplinary sanctions. Instead, “Harvard leveraged disciplinary sanctions to intimidate students”, claims Joshi. “On May 10, four days after an email was sent from Interim President Alan Garber threatening involuntary leave to students, notices were sent out to several students – campers and non-campers alike – including myself,” Joshi, who was not part of the encampment but was entrusted with the task of liaising with the administration, says. On May 18, Safi posted a message on social media platform X with the news that the university had decided to withhold the degrees of several graduate students for one year. Safi says he had never seen such “collective outrage” from the student body following the decision to bar the 13 students from receiving degrees. “Though the decision came as a surprise to us, what was more surprising was to see students from across campus taking to social media to condemn the university’s decision. We were overwhelmed by the support, especially from faculty, nearly 500 of whom mobilised against the administration,” he says. Collective outrage The show of solidarity for those barred from receiving their degrees was on display during the commencement ceremony as well. More than 1,000 students, faculty members and other participants walked out of Harvard’s commencement ceremony last month in protest over the decision to bar 13 students from receiving their degrees [Mark Stockwell/EPA] Shruthi Kumar, the undergraduate speaker, went off-script from her prepared speech, as she spoke in support of the students. “As I stand here today, I must take a moment to recognise my peers, the 13 undergraduates in the class of 2024 who will not graduate today,” Kumar said, while the senior university administration officials watched on. “I am deeply disappointed by the intolerance for freedom of speech and the right to civil disobedience on campus,” the double major in science and economics said. “The students had spoken. The faculty had spoken. Harvard, do you hear us?” Kumar added to loud applause and cheers from students. More than 1,000 students, faculty members and commencement participants staged a walkout from the event, and the 13 students were honoured in a “mock graduation” ceremony which took place the following day. For Joshi, witnessing the walkout, which she says was catalysed by the speech delivered by Kumar, was “extremely heartening”. “I see this particular moment as one of immense galvanising potential, as more and more students are realising the tangible effects of repression,” she says. “However, as a movement, we must make sure that we can redirect peoples’ anger to the most important source of frustration. It is not enough to be in solidarity with fellow students; this solidarity must ultimately centre Palestinian liberation.” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/9/the-harvard-graduating-students-denied-their-degrees-over-palestine-protest

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Music title: Billboard Hot 100 - Top 50 Singles (5/4/2024) Signer: Top50Singles Release date: 2024/04/30 Official YouTube link:

Video title: Funniest Fails Of The Week! FailArmy Content creator ( Youtuber ) : FailArmy Official YT video:

Nick movie: The Boys – Season 4 Official Trailer | Prime Video Time: Amazon Netflix / Amazon / HBO: Amazon Duration of the movie: 2 mins - 48 sec. Trailer:

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Yes @WHAT IS GOING ON

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Yes! @VollmeR?

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Yes @AkiraTheNeko?

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#Rejected! Spring was doing his job as a admin. Read the rules please: Player Rules. T/C.

No! @WHAT IS GOING ON?

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