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By Amy Lieberman April 16, 2009 NEW YORK — Once an anomaly, pet food pantries are now “popping up across the country,” according to Ellen Gillmore, Best Friends Animal Society campaign coordinator. It’s part of a movement to keep pets with their families, and out of overloaded animal shelters — a mission that has now been lent a helping hand by Best Friend’s new program, First Home, Forever Home. The first step in ensuring that kind of stability, Gillmore says, is stabilizing a food source. “There are so many things that pet owners have to consider, like spay/neuter, boarding, and other types of vet care, but we are seeing that food is the primary concern,” Gilmore said. “There is such an immediate need for it that it jumps to the top of our list.” In its first major step, First Home, Forever Home recently gave 1,215 bags of dog food and snacks to two Atlanta-area food banks. Del Monte Foods Company’s Kibble n’ Bits provided for the “generous donation.” Atlanta is just the first city First Home plans to aid — the long-term goal, Gillmore says, is to create networks in all major U.S. cities, placing the responsibility in community member’s hands. “We are limited for what we can do, since we do have our own animals to feed at the sanctuary,” Gillmore explained. “We can’t count on having a company there to provide food all the time. “We want to see if we could do a community-based drive, because we know we can’t tackle this issue alone.” Save Our Pets Food Bank, based in Atlanta, is one of the organizations Best Friends donated to. The pet food pantry received 250 bags of chow two weeks ago — the timing couldn’t have been better, according to Ann King, executive director of Save Our Pets, since just the week before, the organization’s shelves had been cleared out. “Getting that food was like a godsend,” King said. “I keep on getting calls from people all around the country, saying that they are in dire need, asking how they can start something like this up, too.” The food was just as appreciated at Daffy’s Pet Soup Kitchen, located in Lawrenceville, Ga. “It’s like, I am a little guy from Georgia, and for Best Friends to come in and say, let us help you out, let us send you food, that means a lot,” said Tom Wargo, Daffy’s director. “This is a big pet group appealing to us, saying, ‘We like what you are doing, let’s team up.’ It was really great.” In November, Zootoo Pet News first wrote about the Daffy’s efforts to service the Lawrenceville and Atlanta area. Aside from collecting and distributing pet food, Wargo, who used to own a construction company, would also pitch in by building dog houses. Since the fall, Daffy’s has witnessed its regular clientele climb to 400 needy pet owners, according to Wargo. It now has plans to take its efforts nationwide, as well. Citizens from 28 states, including Pennsylvania, Arizona, Tennessee, California, New York and New Jersey, have expressed interest in starting their own chapters of Daffy’s, Wargo says. He notes that he is more than willing to hand over the nonprofit organization’s name and license, and help in any other way possible. All they have to do is contact him, and he promises to get the paper work in motion. “Trying to start up your own nonprofit can cost anywhere from five- to $10,000,” Wargo said. “A lot of people don’t have the money for that. But if they are able to use our license and nonprofit status to do what they have to do, they could be able to have their own events and everything with the Daffy’s banner.” One hundred and thirty people say they want to start their own Daffy’s, Wargo says. Daffy’s program might work in conjunction with Best Friends’, as both strive to establish a long-term membership program, which would help keep the pantries stocked, and pets fed. “The whole concept is everyone can have something like a Daffy’s, and people can pitch in with a $35 membership or something like that,” Wargo said. “It doesn’t have to be a huge thing. “It can be a smaller facility and individuals can just operate it through their own county. It’s not so hard when it isn’t just one person trying to run everything.” Wargo also plans on helping smaller Daffy branches construct the same bins that he keeps outside of his Lawrenceville facility. “It’s cheap, they can make them for $5,” he explained. From there, the bulk of the work — collecting bags of food and other pet merchandise — takes care of itself. “We need to work together on this problem,” he said. “This is not an every-man-for-himself kind of situation.” King says that the extra-help is likely to be appreciated across the board. “I don’t care what they say about things starting to get better,” she said. “People are still out there struggling. And more and more, I perceive a real need for this.” Amy Lieberman is a staff reporter for Zootoo Pet News. She can be reached at alieberman[at]zootoo[dot]com. reprinted from ZooToo News website Thank you for helping out, great info. “You must do the things you think you cannot do.” by Eleanor Roosevelt.

Patients are months away from not having to worry about most surprise medical bills — those extra costs that can amount to hundreds or thousands of dollars when people are unknowingly treated by an out-of-network doctor or hospital. What’s not clear is whether the changes in law made by the No Surprises Act — which takes effect Jan. 1 — will have the unintended consequences of shifting costs and leading to higher insurance premiums. Probably not, many policy experts told KHN. Some predict it may slightly slow premium growth. The reason, said Katie Keith, a research faculty member at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University, is that a rule released Sept. 30 by the Biden administration appears to “put a thumb on the scale” to discourage settlements at amounts higher than most insurers generally pay for in-network care. That rule drew immediate opposition from hospital and physician groups, with the American Medical Association calling. The most recent guidance is the third issued to implement the law, which passed in late 2020 after a years-long battle. It was signed by then-President Donald Trump. who has not signed on with an insurer’s network. Patients were caught in the middle and liable for the difference between between $200. But which price to pick in arbitration?. A final rule says “there is uncertainty around how premiums will be ultimately affected” with much depending on how often disputed bills go to arbitration. The latest rule as compared with other measures but, still, “by definition a median is what half of doctors get paid, so this could, in theory, raise that for the other half.” What’s likely, health policy experts said, is that the new law will prompt more providers to join insurer networks. Some physicians — most often, emergency room doctors, anesthesiologists and radiologists — have avoided signing contracts with insurers. Instead, they typically set charges above the level of insurers’ reimbursement in the future,.” Related Topics Submit a Story Tip Most Related Links : Business News Governmental News Finance News

They earned bachelor’s degrees and doctorates. They work in the White House, medical technology, higher ed, and even the United States Army. Yet they’re all changing the world for the better wherever they are — which has earned them a place among the Georgia Tech Alumni Association’s 2021 class of 40 Under 40. Here are the six alumni from the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering on this year’s list: Mahdi Al-Husseini, PP 2018, BME 2018, MSCS 2020 Aeromedical Evacuations Officer | U.S. Army “Iron sharpens iron, and my peers at Georgia Tech were certainly of a higher caliber. I remain in touch with many of my former classmates; their success is inspirational,” Al-Husseini says. Ambika Bumb, BME 2005 President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology | White House “My initial exposure at Georgia Tech to developing nanotechnology led me to Oxford to do a PhD and then the NIH for two post-docs, all related to nanomedicine. I launched a biotech startup Bikanta from that academic research and for five years enjoyed the nimbleness and innovation that a startup allows for,” Bumb says. Cory Sago, Ph.D. BME 2019 Senior Director, Head of LNP Discovery | Beam Therapeutics “As scientists and engineers, many of us are wired to try to understand the facts of our world (the ‘what’). I’d encourage GT students and new graduates to also consciously pursue the ‘why’ behind the world,” Sago says. Mike Weiler, BME 2010, MSME 2012, Ph.D. BioE 2015 Cofounder and CEO | LymphaTech “During grad school at Georgia Tech, I was a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, a graduate of the NSF Innovation Corps, and a TI:GER Fellow. The TI:GER program was particularly instrumental in my career, as it provided an opportunity to learn the fundamentals of business model generation and customer discovery applied to my dissertation research. The final business plan that we created in the TI:GER program is very similar to the business plan that LymphaTech still follows today,” Weiler says. Varun Yarabarla, BME 2016 Development Lead | VentLife “I was honestly a little disappointed that I would be leaving engineering behind when I chose to pursue medical school. However, when there is a will, people can always find a way; in medical school, I still used my engineering-based computer coding skill to land a position in a distinguished neurology lab,” Yarabarla says. Y. Shrike Zhang, Ph.D. BME 2013 Assistant Professor | Harvard Medical School Associate Bioengineer | Brigham and Women’s Hospital “The engineering education at GT is excellent and transdisciplinary,” Zhang says. Read Next Two senior design teams publish reports on their brain-related projects in academic journals Velda Wang is a co-lead author on the paper in Brain Sciences

Kazakhstan is ripe for receiving more foreign investment into its economy of $170 billion – the largest in Central Asia. German companies have expressed interest in developing deeper commercial ties during the Kazakhstan-German Business Forum, held in Berlin on October 7. “The forum has become an effective platform for representatives of the political, economic and expert pools of Kazakhstan and Germany,” said Ulf Wokurka, the independent director at Kazakh Invest, a government platform to ease local investment policy, according to a report by Forbes Kazakhstan. The event welcomed more than 200 officials and private sector professionals, and reportedly resulted in more than $700 million in trade deals after Kazakhstani delegations struck agreements with German businesses including Linde Gas, SMS Group, CLAAS Group and Masterrind. The documents will be signed by the president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, as part of his visit to Germany from December 5-6. Berlin sees Kazakhstan, one of the world’s largest countries and the most developed in Central Asia, as a promising market for business, despite being thousands of miles apart. Germany’s direct investments in Kazakhstan over the past 14 years amounted to slightly more than $5 billion, according to Roman Sklyar, Kazakhstan’s deputy prime minister, who spoke at the event. Investments involve more than 900 different companies, such as Siemens, Daimler, Tyssenkrupp, Knauf, Bayer, BASF, Bosch and Linde. At the same time, the amount of trade between the two countries reached an historic high of 5.1 billion euro in 2018, according to government data. “Modern-day Kazakhstan – is new opportunities and a great potential for profitable business,” said Manfred Grundke, CEO at Knauf Group, according to a report by Deutsche Welle. “Growth forecasts for Kazakhstan are impressive. According to the EBRD forecast, Kazakhstan’s GDP can grow by 3.5 percent in 2019. Forecasts for 2020 indicate that Kazakhstan is the growth engine for the Eurasian Economic Union,” he said. Over the past year doing business in Kazakhstan has become easier, according to the World Bank’s “Doing Business 2019” ratings. The country ranked 28th, ahead of countries like Russia (#31) and China (#46), and some of the world’s most developed economies, such as Italy (#51) and Brazil (#109). Meanwhile, Lazzat Burankulova, a representative of the Samruk-Kazyna National Welfare Fund, says that the ease of doing business is not the only thing important about Kazakhstan. Forming part of both the Caspian and Central Asia regions, Kazakhstan occupies a strategic location along some of the largest east-to-west and north-to-south transportation routes, including avenues to China and India. Once a part of the ancient Silk Road, Kazakhstan is poised to benefit from trade routes linking Europe and Asia through China’s mega-shipping and logistics network known as the Belt and Road Initiative. The project is supposed to connect Asia to Europe and Africa via a series of shipping and land routes, some of which cross the Kazakh steppes. “Thanks to this location potential investors will have access to regional markets with more than 500 million consumers. And this is apart from the Chinese market, which is almost limitless,” Burankulova said Monday.

Ontario is shifting to step Three of the plan to reopen the coronavirus this summer season on July 16 Ontario will move to the third step in its summer reopening plan on July 16, reopening indoor restaurants, indoor fitness activities, cinemas and nightclubs for the first time in months, but capacity restrictions will remain in place until August. The Ford cabinet met Friday morning to confirm measures that will allow indoor dining to resume across the province, with capacity limited to the number of people who can physically maintain a two-meter distance , as well as numerous other relaxed restrictions throughout the economy. The relaxed measures will take effect on Friday morning at 12:01 p.m., the government said in a press release. They also confirmed the existence of a fourth step in the reopening plan which would remove “the vast majority of public health and safety measures in the workplace, including indoor and outdoor capacity limits and social gathering restrictions”. They say Ontario will stay in Step 3 for at least 21 days, and until 80 percent of Ontarians over 12 have received a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 75 percent a second dose. By Friday, 78 percent of Ontarians 12 and over had received a first dose and 50 percent had received a second dose. Dr. Kieran Moore, chief medical officer of Health, said it was important to get as many people as possible vaccinated this summer to prevent a fall resurgence. “I think it’s an ambitious goal,” he said of the 80/75 line. “I think it’s a call to arms for all Ontarians – I think we all want a return to a post-pandemic world. I absolutely assume that we will have an increase in cases in the fall when we move indoors. “ He said that for 80 percent of people 12 years and older, a first dose would severely limit transmission, even as the weather got colder. “We have several weeks – six to seven weeks before September to really speak to your family and friends and make sure they are vaccinated – to make sure all questions about vaccines are answered,” he said, adding that the Delta variant still keeps him “awake at night”. “ Prime Minister Doug Ford said the new eased restrictions in the plan don’t mean Ontarians should become complacent. “Guys, this is far from over, we still have a good fight,” he told reporters in Brampton on Friday. “So let’s not drive the winning lap, just be hardworking and get vaccinated again.” From July 16, all retailers will also be allowed to accept as many customers as they can accommodate within a physical distance of two meters. Cinemas, amusement parks and indoor fitness facilities are allowed to reopen with 50 percent occupancy. Indoor gatherings are allowed for up to 25 people indoors or 100 people outdoors. Nightclubs and restaurants with dance floors will be limited to 25 percent of pre-pandemic capacity, up to 250 guests. The size of any party sitting inside or outside a restaurant will no longer be limited, while current guidelines limit the size of a table to six guests. Plus, professional sports venues can accommodate up to 15,000 outdoor spectators, which is 75 percent of their pre-pandemic capacity. Indoors, they’re allowed to hold 1,000 spectators, or half the pre-pandemic capacity, whichever is smaller. Elsewhere in sport, all sporting activities with contact may be resumed. Personal care facilities are also allowed to resume services that require mask removal. Places of worship are allowed to accommodate as many people as possible, provided the distance of two meters can be maintained. Event and conference venues can have up to 1,000 attendees, or 50 percent of pre-pandemic capacity, whichever is less. Last month, Moore appeared to be suggesting that the province would not move on to Step 3 prematurely, as the Delta variant needed time for them to analyze case trends. In a speech on Friday, Moore said he had no reason to stick to the previous schedule given the rapid pace of vaccination. “I saw no reason to hold back with so many Ontarians calling in – nearly 200,000 a day calling in (for vaccination),” he told reporters. Moore emphasized that despite all the relaxed restrictions, there is still a mask requirement in all publicly accessible indoor spaces. The Scientific Director of the COVID-19 Science Advisory Table in Ontario, Dr. Peter Jüni, reiterating his concern, said this week that the province is not ready for step 3 due to the increased transmission capacity of the delta variant. Toronto Mayor John Tory issued a statement Friday supporting the accelerated transition to Step 3. “I support this decision as it is based on advice from health officials and I believe it is the right thing to do as we continue to see lower case numbers and higher vaccination rates,” he said. “This makes continuous advances in vaccinations more important than ever.” The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) responded to the news by saying that this agreement leads to a fourth level of restrictions, at which they will mostly end permanently. “While this is good news, for those companies facing capacity constraints and other constraints, it won’t get them on the road to profitability after accumulating an average of over $ 200,000 in COVID-related debt,” said a spokesman. “You will have to wait until early August for a full reopening under the new plan to move on to Step 4.” Cinemas, indoor restaurants and gyms have been closed in Toronto and the Peel Region since October 2020. Ontario Restaurant, Hotel and Motel Association president Tony Elenis called the long indoor dining exposure “a very frustrating wait”. “After a very frustrating wait that has put our patience to the test, we are delighted that the Province of Ontario is announcing the required regulations for Step 3 of the Ontario reopening. This is a good move for Ontario’s hospitality operations and at this point we’re happy with the announcement of the capacity rules. “ Strip clubs, bathhouses, and sex clubs are also allowed to reopen in Step 3. Strip clubs are limited to the number of guests who can be physically separated by two meters, with patrons and performers three meters apart. Bathhouses and sex clubs will be limited to 50 percent of pre-pandemic capacity, up to the number of guests that can be physically separated by two meters. Other cultural sites such as museums, science centers, and aquariums will be limited to 50 percent of pre-pandemic capacity. Casinos are also reopening at 50 percent of pre-pandemic capacity. Moore said any local health authority will be able to decline moving to Step 3 if local conditions warrant and will implement additional “restrictions”. – With files from Colin D’Mello, CTV News Toronto

Reston, James Barrett Reston, James Barrett(Scotty Reston), 1909–95, American journalist, b. Clydebank, Scotland. His family emigrated to the United States in 1920. After working briefly for the Springfield (Ohio) Daily News, he joined the Associated Press in 1934. He moved to the London bureau of the New York Times in 1939, settling in New York in 1940, but taking a leave to establish a U.S. Office of War Information in London in 1942. Rejoining the Times, Reston was assigned to Washington, D.C., as national correspondent (1945), then diplomatic correspondent (1948) and bureau chief and columnist (1953). Reston subsequently was associate editor of the New York Times (1964–68), executive editor (1968–69), and vice president (1969–74). He wrote a nationally syndicated column from 1974 until 1987, when he became a senior columnist, and retired two years later. Long the most powerful and influential journalist at the nation's most powerful and influential newspaper, Reston interviewed most of the world's leaders and wrote cogently about the leading events and issues of his time. He earned a journalistic reputation for insight, fair-mindedness, balance, humaneness, and wit, twice winning the Pulitzer Prize (1945, 1957) for national reporting. His books include Prelude to Victory (1942), The Artillery of the Press (1967), and Sketches in the Sand (1967). Bibliography See his memoirs, Deadline (1991); biography by J. F. Stacks (2002).

League founder and CEO Michael Serbinis League, an online platform that wants to reduce the strain of managing health benefits for companies and employees alike, announced today that it has raised a $62 million CAD (about $47.1 million USD) Series B. The round was led by TELUS Ventures, with participation from Wittington Ventures and returning investors OMERS, Infinite Potential Group, RBC Ventures and BDC Ventures. The Toronto-based startup’s last round of funding was a $25 million Series A two years ago. With clients like Uber, Shopify and Unilever, League is currently one of the bigger players in the “employee wellness space,” which encompasses a roster of startups dedicated to boosting retention and productivity rates by improving health benefits. The growth of the sector is fueled by competition for top talent, the rising cost of healthcare and increasing awareness of mental health issues. League was launched in 2014 by serial entrepreneur Michael Serbinis, who was previously founder and CEO of Kobo, the Kindle competitor acquired by Rakuten in 2011. Serbinis tells TechCrunch that his interest in health technology was sparked by a conversation about healthcare inefficiencies with Patrick Soon-Shiong, the pharmaceutical entrepreneur and NantHealth founder probably better known outside of biotech circles as the newest owner of the Los Angeles Times. Serbinis says Soon-Shiong told him that the healthcare system needed to be fixed by someone outside of the industry, who was able to take a fresh, consumer-driven approach. “I got into it naively not being a healthcare person, with not even a biology class anywhere in my past, and I very quickly realized that most people think about healthcare through the lens of health insurance, i.e. can I do it, can I afford it?” Serbinis, League’s CEO, says. “The more I learned about it, the more I realized how broken it is. In the U.S. and Canada and Western European nations, healthcare gets more expensive, but you get less and less, and no one loves the experience.” He notes that health benefits “are a top three requirement for anyone seeking a new job in the U.S. today and for millennials it’s the top one or two, depending on the survey.” At the same time, healthcare is also one of the top three expenses for companies. While there is a growing roster of startups, including Spring Health, Lyra Health and Lumity, tackling different corporate healthcare issues, Serbinis felt the space was still missing “an end-to-end platform that fits on top of health insurance providers and underwriters, to give employers a way to offer a competitive solution in the war for talent and saving money.” League’s mission is to let employees take more control over their health plans, while reducing costs for companies by providing a HIPAA-compliant platform that connects all benefits. This enables employees to manage their health plan and benefits with League’s chat-based online assistant and a digital wallet. They also gain more transparency into things like health insurance pricing and flexible spending accounts. League partners with other companies to offer perks like ClassPass or Headspace discounts, prescription delivery services or access fertility treatments that aren’t covered by traditional insurance plans. On the other end, companies get analytics to help them design healthcare plans and see if the benefits they offer are actually improving employee morale. Serbinis says League’s ease of use is proven by its high engagement rate. The company claims three-quarters of users log onto the platform each month, and of that number, many access it five to 20 times a month. One interesting aspect of League’s story is that Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan are currently making headlines for a new joint health care initiative. While the venture will start by overhauling health benefits at those three organizations, it is being closely watched because of its potential influence on the health care industry. Thanks to Kobo, which was once Kindle’s top competitor, Serbinis already has experience going head-to-head with Amazon. After learning about the triumvirate’s plans, Serbinis says he emailed Bezos. “I said I love the initiative and would love to help out, because for the most part, what people expect in the short-term is really aggregate purchasing power and driving costs down there. But ultimately, I expect a lot more from them, and the idea of bringing strategic assets and capability, a big pool of employees and technology together is the right strategy,” he says. “I can see Amazon looking for a partner like League.” He adds that the joint initiative will light a fire in the sector. “I see new entrants into this market accelerate because of Amazon. It really has opened people’s eyes to the idea that this is a massive problem,” Serbinis says. “I see a lot of people getting into the game because of Amazon leading the way, and what I’ve seen already is incumbent players trying to speed up and accelerate their innovation programs.” In a media statement, TELUS Ventures managing partner Rich Osborn said “We believe that innovative companies like League–which deliver compelling, consumer-centric experiences–will not only drive high employee and employer engagement, but will also deliver fundamental improvements in health outcomes for Canadians through their carrier-friendly open platform.” The company’s Series B will be used to open offices in San Francisco, New York and London. League launched in the United States in 2017, starting with an office in Chicago, and is now licensed to operate in all 50 states. Serbinis says one of the markets that will help its American expansion are employers with less than 50 “full-time equivalent” employees who aren’t mandated to provide coverage under the Affordable Care Act, but still need to offer health benefits in order to attract talent. Another new opening is the recent Department of Labor ruling on “association health plans” that makes it easier for small businesses in the same sector to team up and buy employee health insurance together. League also plans to begin operating in the United Kingdom and European Union next year, which will make it easier to attract multinational clients who want to use the same platform to manage health benefits in different countries. “When you think about the future of health insurance, it’s easy to think about more of the same, but with a better website or app,” says Serbinis. “But the fact is that the future of health insurance is not just about insurance, but health and there is the idea of focusing on consumers and delivering personalized experiences, a digital experience that is data driven and helps them every day, instead of waiting to the point where they are sick and have to go to a website under duress to find out what to do.”

Joins Bipartisan Group of State, Community Leaders to Recognize Overdose Awareness Day Main Content FRANK, to reduce the stigma of drug-related deaths and to acknowledge the grief felt by families and friends as they remember those who have died or have a permanent injury as a result of a drug overdose. “Our job is to provide help, hope and a hand to lead people out of the darkness of substance use and into the light – of acceptance, opportunity and community," said Gov. Beshear . “Today, we take time to honor the lives lost to overdose and addiction – and call all Kentuckians to work together to prevent future pain and suffering." The ongoing pandemic, as it did throughout the nation, greatly impacted opioid deaths in the commonwealth. In Kentucky, there were at least 2,104 drug-related deaths in the 12-month period ending December 2020, a 54% increase over the previous year. Today's ceremony was livestreamed and included a demonstration of Naloxone, a medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose, by the Kentucky Pharmacists Association. To learn more about Naloxone, visit . As part of the observance, Gov. Beshear directed that flags at all state office buildings be lowered to half-staff from sunrise until sunset on Tuesday. The Governor encourages individuals, businesses and organizations throughout the commonwealth to join in this tribute. Gov. Beshear also lit the Governor's Mansion purple in honor of Overdose Awareness Day. “The commonwealth has been hit incredibly hard by the drug crisis, and on International Overdose Awareness Day we mourn our fellow Kentuckians whose lives have been cut short and honor the families who carry on their legacies," said Attorney General Daniel Cameron . “In the midst of this crisis, we continue pushing every available resource toward combatting the drug epidemic. Whether it's working with law enforcement to get drugs off of our streets or holding opioid companies accountable, ending this crisis requires effective collaboration and a sustained effort on every front, and we will continue to do our part." “I think it's very important as we gather today to honor lives lost to this disease that we begin to see this issue for what it truly is – and that we see all individuals diagnosed with substance use disorders as people, our fellow Kentuckians, who need access to evidence-based, compassionate care," said Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) Secretary Eric Friedlander . “For anyone who is in recovery or has a family member, friend, co-worker or neighbor, please know that we are proud of you," said Van Ingram, executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy . “We appreciate your efforts and we stand here today to tell you that we are available to assist with your journey. Please reach out for access to resources and let's all continue to lift each other up and save our communities from losing more loved ones and citizens to this tragic drug epidemic." “This day is vitally important to me, because I lost a nephew to the opioid epidemic and will forever treasure his memory and wish he could still be with us today," Kentucky House Democratic Caucus Leader Joni Jenkins said. “I always have and always will support efforts to tackle this crisis, and I believe strongly we can do even more to help Kentuckians escape this deadly cycle and rebuild their lives. That need is even more imperative during the COVID crisis, which has contributed to skyrocketing overdose cases. We have to find ways to keep more of our citizens safe." “Conversations to spread awareness of substance abuse drive attitudinal changes that not only reduce the stigma around addiction-related health issues, but they drive policy changes across the state and the country," Rep. Kim Moser said. “We remain committed to removing barriers that keep Kentuckians from seeking the treatment they need, ultimately ending Kentucky's ongoing overdose epidemic." “The opioid epidemic has adversely affected us all, with many losing a loved one to this disease and everyone suffering from human and economic costs that are simply incalculable," said Rep. Patti Minter . “I am honored today to share the story of constituents who unfortunately have a personal connection to this tragedy, and I deeply appreciate the support of Gov. Andy Beshear, my General Assembly colleagues, advocates and many others as we pledge on this day of remembrance to do whatever else it takes to save more lives." “No family is immune from addiction. It is a pervasive, widespread disease that harms families and takes countless lives each year. No matter where you find yourself in Kentucky, drug addiction and substance abuse run rampant through our local communities," Rep. Dan Elliott said. “Addiction touches us all in one form or another." “Today – on Overdose Awareness Day – and every day, we must remember the Kentuckians who have lost their lives to addiction," said Beth Davisson, senior vice president of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, Foundation . “These are our friends and family members. Our colleagues and neighbors. Our parents. Our sons and daughters. I will never stop fighting for them – and know the Chamber and the Kentucky business community share the same commitment." Since taking office, the Governor has continued his pledge to fight tirelessly for those suffering from substance abuse, along with their families. On Aug. 17, also announced $4.6 million in grant funding to expand treatment and recovery services, including those for mothers and pregnant women with opioid use disorders and an additional $1.4 million to assist state and local law enforcement with efforts to prevent or reduce crime and violence, and address drug trafficking in their communities. By the end of 2022, the Beshear administration, in partnership with the Office of Drug Control Policy (ODCP), estimates that over a three-year period the office will have awarded more than $69 million in grant funding across the commonwealth, focused on aiding all Kentuckians in need of recovery help and preventing future generations from falling prey to addiction. In March, Gov. Beshear signed House Bill 7 into law to ensure that has continued

Stanford Law School Hosts Mountain Guardian and Bright Award Winner, Aisha Khan Preserving the mountain regions of Pakistan and all at-risk mountain regions around the world, while providing help to communities impacted by climate change in those areas, was the main topic of discussion at this year’s Bright Award event at Stanford Law School on October 3, 2019. After witnessing firsthand the environmental degradation of Pakistan’s Karakoram Mountain Range in 2001, Aisha Khan decided to take matters into her own hands by establishing the Mountain & Glacier Protection Organization (MGPO). Eighteen years later (and after founding additional environmental organizations, including the Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change, a membership-based networking platform that connects individuals and organizations concerned about climate change in Pakistan), in recognition of her multifaceted efforts to preserve the mountain regions of Pakistan and empower their people, Khan was presented with the 2019 Stanford Bright Award at this year’s ceremony in front of a large and enthusiastic audience. Stanford awards the Bright Award each year to an individual who has made exceptional contributions to global sustainability. The $100,000 award is given to an individual or individuals from one of ten rotating regions, which so far have included the Middle East, West Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, and North America. “We are grateful to the Bright family for entrusting Stanford with finding unsung heroes of environmental conservation, giving them the recognition they deserve and providing them with the resources and attention they need to take their work to the next level,” said Jenny Martinez, the Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Dean of Stanford Law School. Preserving the Environment, Saving Communities and Empowering Women and Youth Khan was recognized for her work to lead and coordinate multiple efforts to restore and preserve the high mountain regions of Pakistan in ways that benefit local economies and empower their people. She also brought together organizations, individuals and governments in what she calls a “whole society approach” to combat climate change in Pakistan. The first organization that Khan founded, MGPO, is a social welfare, nonprofit organization focusing on the impact of climate change in the mountainous regions of Pakistan that also strives to enhance the quality of life of local disadvantaged communities by building physical infrastructure and by providing them with improved access to education and healthcare services. “I feel a special gratitude for those who believed in me and supported my work when I was striving to make a difference with nothing other than passion to guide my actions,” said Khan. “I never thought of winning an award or getting recognition for the work I do but now that it has come, I have to admit that it feels very good.” The award ceremony brought together faculty, students, and local community members in an engaging panel discussion, “Climate Change Impacts on Vulnerable Communities,” hosted by Climate One founder Greg Dalton. Other panelists at the event included Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, Assistant Professor of Earth System Science and Marshall Burke, both assistant professors of Earth System Science at Stanford University. In the discussion, Khan explained the importance of including women and youth in climate projects and how that can be controversial in the traditionally male-dominated societies in which MGPO often works. “Transforming social values and age-old tradition is not easy,” said Khan. “But, my conviction that complex issues in a changing environment require all sectors and all actors to collaborate, consult, engage and work with and through each other, helps me to pursue this agenda.” Buzz Thompson, Robert E. Paradise Professor in Natural Resources Law and senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, who leads the Bright Award nominating committee, called this year’s recipient a “trusted messenger” of conservation and preservation to the at-risk communities she serves. At the conclusion of the event, Khan remarked on the crucial role that the youth have in the discussion of climate change in Pakistan and around the world. “It is the young people who have to do everything, really,” said Khan. “They need to declare, ‘This is our future that you’re playing with!’ They need to persistently ask what kind of world will be left for them. “If we believe in one humanity, and shared responsibility, and prosperity that leaves no one behind, then every action from now on that we take has to build on the principles of social, ecological, and democratic equity,” concluded Khan. Learn more about the Bright Award. Watch the video of the Bright Award event.

The crew change crisis is worsening once again with thousands more workers at sea working beyond their contracted times. At its peak in the middle of last year there were more than 400,000 crew who were working beyond their contract times, a figure that had gradually been cut in half, but has over the past two months started to rise rapidly based on data from the world’s top 10 ship managers. The Maritime Labour Convention states that the maximum continuous period a seafarer should serve on board a vessel without leave is 11 months. Many thousands of crew have now been at sea for more than a year. “The situation is going from bad to worse. We need more than lip service from governments, we need concrete action that allows crew changes to be carried out in a safe manner,” commented Stephen Cotton, general secretary, International Transport Workers’ Federation. Guy Platten, secretary general of the International Chamber of Shipping, said resolving the crew change crisis requires all seafarers to have priority access to vaccines. While there has been some progress on this front, for instance in the United States and in parts of Europe, the vast majority of seafarers are still unable to be vaccinated. Ship managers who have contributed data to the Neptune Declaration Crew Change Indicator, which gives an indication of the worsening situation at sea, reported today on reasons for the spiraling numbers of crew struggling to get home on time. Continual high infection rates and subsequent domestic lockdowns are still challenging crew changes and causing disruption to crew movements. A decrease of daily inbound flights to the Philippines as well as the travel ban announced by Philippine government for seafarers traveling from the UAE, Oman, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan are causing a general disruption to the crew movements. Travel restrictions continue to prevent seafarers from going back home and many flights have been cancelled. Leading maritime crew nations continue to have low vaccination rates and seafarers continue to have limited vaccine access. Costs are rising in the crewing sector and crew shortages are beginning to be seen as Covid-19 travel restrictions and vaccination delays impact the availability of trained seafarers, Danica Crewing Services warned this week. “Not unexpectedly – and as in freight markets – when there is a shortage the cost goes up and we now see shipping companies offering salaries 10-20% higher than the average market levels or providing a high joining bonus,” commented Henrik Jensen, Danica’s managing director. More than 4,000 people have signed an online petition created by shipping veteran Frank Coles to establish an enforceable global protocol for so called green channel travel for seafarers. “Normally at sea for around eight months at a time many seafarers have been forced to spend 16 or more months at sea during Covid. Countries have closed their borders, flights stopped and extremely taxing rules put in place for any travel. This has placed an extraordinary strain on mental welfare of the mariners. It has also put the safety of ships at risk,” reads the petition launched a few days ago via the site change.org.

Barkin Ladi Local Council Gets New Principal Officers as Councillors are Sworn In With the Local Government Polls in Plateau State were conducted on 9th October, 2021 and the Council Chairmen sworn in, Barkin Ladi Local Government Council has sworn in the Councillors representing the 20 Wards of the Area who were elected in the just concluded Council Polls. Clerk of Barkin Ladi Local Government Council Legislative Arm, Mr. Chuwang Wash Pam inaugurated the Councillors who immediately elected their leadership who will pilot the affairs of the Legislative Arm with Hon. Wash Toma Fom, Councillor Tafan Nwok ‘B’ Ward emerging the Leader of the Legislative Arm. Others who were elected as principal Officer were; Hon. Rhoda Bature from Kakuruk Ward as Deputy Leader, Hon. Ezekiel Makada from Marit Ward Majority Leader, Hon. Pam C. Dung of Heipang Ward as Deputy Majority Leader, the Office of the Chief Whip went to Hon. Zi Habila from Kapwen Ket Ward while Hon. Emmanuel Markus Chollom of Lobiring Ward is the Deputy Chief Whip. In his acceptance speech, Rt. Hon. Wash Toma Fom described the day as historic in the anal of Barkin Ladi LGA and appreciated his colleagues for finding him and others the opportunity to serve as Principal Officers. The Legislator posited that they will run an all-inclusive governance in the running of the Legislative Arm by carrying all along. He said as Representatives of the people at the grassroot, they will accord support to the Council Chairman to deliver dividends of democracy to the doorsteps of the people as they provide credible representation to the people. He posited that the Legislative Arm will not disappoint the trust and confidence reposed in them by the people but justify it with effective representation. He admonished the people to accord them the necessary spiritual and moral support.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — There is hope that help could be on the way for one if the industries hit hardest by COVID-19. Another stimulus bill called the HEROES Act is in the works in Washington. Some of the highlights include another round of $1,200 checks, and restoring the extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits.READ MORE: 'We Just Wanted To Go Hard': Shoppers Endure Early Mornings, Long Lines For Black Friday Deals Also tucked inside the bill is the “Save Our Stages” Act, which exists partly because of Minnesota. It would allocate $10 billion in grants for music venues, producers, promoters and talent representatives. Each individual is able to apply for up to $12 million, along with a supplemental grant that is equal to 50% of the initial grant. Ashley Ryan is the marketing director for First Avenue. “These grants would potentially save hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of jobs,” Ryan said. The iconic music venue in downtown Minneapolis is celebrating its 50th year of being in business. Thanks to the pandemic, it hasn’t hosted a concert in more than 200 days. “The operating costs to maintain the building don’t end just because the concerts haven’t happened,” Ryan said. “What we know is we need a lifeline and we need it now.”READ MORE: Minnesota Wild Celebrates Native American Heritage Day With Special Jerseys She says the previous stimulus packages didn’t include Save Our Stages, nor were they designed to help the live music industry. “In the early stimulus package there were things like PPP [Paycheck Protection Program]. Everyone said, ‘Oh that’s gonna help small businesses, you don’t need anything special. We’ve got this other thing for you.’ Realistically for us, for other venues, PPP didn’t really cover it. We’re closed. We don’t have employees that are working like other businesses do,” Ryan said. “So we’re really excited that this updated HEROES Act actually includes the Save Our Stages.” The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), comprised of 2,800 music venues including First Avenue, has been the main lobbyist for the Save Our Stages Act. Audrey Fix Schaefer is NIVA’s communication director. ,” Fix Schaefer said. The impact of bill would go beyond the music venues. A recent study found for every $1 spent on a concert ticket at a small venue, $12 is generated for area businesses restaurants, hotels and transportation. That’s music to First Avenue’s ears. “We want to make it to 51 [years], we want to make it to 50 more years after that,” Ryan said. Sen. Amy Klobuchar co-sponsored the Save Our Stages Act and released a statement saying in part, “Now that the new coronavirus relief bill includes Save Our Stages, we are one step closer to getting small entertainment venues the help they need to make ends meet and serve our communities for generations to come.”MORE NEWS: Even After Heartbreaking Loss, 11-Year-Old Nika Hirsch Continues Black Friday Quest To Do 1,000 Kind Deeds The Heroes Act is still being negotiated in Washington. After meetings about the bill Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said they have made progress, and remain hopeful a deal can be reached.

Another COVID-19 fatality has been recorded in Lagos State, according to the state Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi; thus bringing total fatality from COVID-19 in Tue Centre of Excellence to 14. Making this known on Sunday, Prof. Abayomi said the deceased, an 83 year old woman, had underlying health issues before contracting the virus. He said, “Twenty-three new COVID-19 cases confirmed in Lagos. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Lagos State is now 309. “Four COVID-19 patients were discharged as at 18th of April, bringing the total discharged cases to 94. “Lagos recorded one death, bringing the total number of COVID-19-related deaths in Lagos to 14. “Let’s observe social distancing and stay home to stop the transmission of COVID-19 infection”.

Zim doctor makes history as St. Louis’ first black female physician Director of Health By Keith Mlauzi | Nehanda Diaspora | Zimbabwe born Dr Matifadza Hlatshwayo Davis made history after she was sworn in as the first black female physician Director of Health for the City of St. Louis in the United States. In September the city Mayor Tishaura O. Jones announced he would be hiring Dr. Hlatshwayo Davis. Dr. Hlatshwayo Davis comes on board in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and she promises to hit ‘the ground running’. In a video interview she explained that she has always known that she wanted to deal with infectious diseases after seeing how HIV had and impact in Zimbabwe. “I came to the US to explore my undergraduate education at medical school. Always knowing I wanted to be in infectious diseases because I saw how HIV impacted my country,” said Dr. Hlatshwayo Davis. She added that one of her aims was to improve employees working environment to ensure all employees know that they are valuable. She also said she will work on educating the public more about Covid vaccines. Dr Hlatshwayo Davis went to the US six years ago studying at Washington University and she’s already making history. Speaking about her historical moment, Dr. Mati as she is affectionately known said it’s ‘powerful’ considering her two daughters had to witness it as well. “My young daughters got to see their mother being sworn in as the first black female physician Director of Health for the city, that is so powerful.” Nehanda Radio

By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Boris Johnson has pledged to make the UK a science superpower The chancellor will increase science spending to £20bn a year by 2024 - £2bn less than he pledged in 2020. The boost was announced in the Budget, announced by Rishi Sunak on Wednesday. There is some disappointment among many scientific leaders - but the commitment to sustained additional investment has been welcomed by some. The President of the UK's Royal Society, Prof Sir Adrian Smith, told BBC news that the announcement sent out a positive signal. "It is not absolutely ideal. But we are grown-ups. There are real pressures on the economy, but the government is saying that it really does recognise that R&D [research and development] is absolutely vital," he said. Although the chancellor's increase is less many had hoped for, it is more than some had feared. Last week, those negotiating with the Treasury told BBC News they were getting clear signals that the commitment to increase spending to £22bn a year would be kicked into the long grass. Scientific and business leaders lobbied hard, arguing that a long deferral of scientific investment would mean that other countries, which are investing more in research, would overtake the UK. Those sources say that the Mr Sunak seems to have listened to those arguments. The chancellor said that the commitment of £22bn would be pushed back by two years to 2026. But that will be after the next General Election, when someone else might have Mr Sunak's job - and take a different view. Sizable increase But the Chancellor has promised to deliver what has been described as a sizeable increase of around £5bn before the end of this Parliament. That's a 33% increase on top of the current research budget of £15bn a year. What is notable is that the bulk of the increase will come in 2023, so a large amount of the additional funding for science is not that far away. Some £2bn of that increase is for membership of the EU's collaborative research programme, Horizon Europe. BBC News reported earlier this week that the UK's access to the programme was being used as a bargaining chip in wider negotiations with the EU over the status of Northern Ireland. Now that the money has been allocated to the science budget, research leaders have a clear choice between spending it on membership fees or on doing more science. The Treasury itself is understood to feel that spending money on Horizon Europe is an inefficient use of funds but will leave the decision to the scientific community. Sir Jeremy Farrar, who is director of the Wellcome Trust, believes that, given the financial pressures the chancellor faces, this is not a bad settlement. "We welcome the government's ongoing commitment to making the UK a science superpower. But it will need to continue to increase investment in science to catch up with other leading science nations. The UK's investment in R&D as a proportion of GDP lags behind the OECD average, and it will take time to change that," he said. Scientific and business leaders say that the most important aspect of the science settlement is that they now have a firm timetable and an upward trajectory for science spending. According to the president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Prof Sir Jim McDonald, that sends out a clear message to the private sector thinking of investing in research and to overseas scientists and businesses thinking of coming to Britain. "The comprehensive package of investment for R&D announced today gives much needed confidence to businesses that the UK is a great place to invest. The measures outlined by the chancellor today will stimulate innovation for a better, faster and more resilient recovery." Follow Pallab on Twitter.

NJ novelist tackles love, race, and crime Peter Golden draws on memories of his youth in Newark’s suburbs Staff Writer, New Jersey Jewish News A romance between a Jewish gangster and an African-American photographer provides a snapshot of discrimination in the mid-20th century in a new novel by Peter Golden. And although the plot of Wherever There Is Light shifts among Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Paris, it draws deeply on Golden’s own memories of growing up Jewish in South Orange and Maplewood. South Orange landmarks, like Gruning’s Ice Cream, as well as everyday aspects of the town — the gas streetlights, the Newstead neighborhood, and South Orange Middle School — all make cameo appearances. Some of the characters in this novel came to him while sitting in traffic on the Garden State Parkway, Golden said. “Other people get aggravated,” he said. “I imagine characters.” A journalist, biographer, and historian, Golden wrote another novel, Comeback Love, but is best known for his nonfiction work on the Soviet Jewry movement in America, O Powerful Western Star! American Jews, Russian Jews, and the Final Battle of the Cold War (Gefen Publishing House, 2012). Golden will read from his new book at Words bookstore in Maplewood on Thursday, Nov. 5. Golden said his research skills came in handy for his latest novel, which will be published by Simon & Schuster in November. It ties together a Jewish mobster, an elite southern African-American family, Jewish refugees from Germany, the art of photography, an emerging bohemian intellectual class in Greenwich Village and Paris, and press coverage of World War II. It depicts a rigidly segregated Florida, where blacks could be lynched for the smallest transgression of the unwritten racial protocol; the racial discrimination facing blacks who came North to New York and New Jersey; and postwar Paris, where the social upheaval of the war offered a welcoming space for an interracial couple. The plot is as complicated as the cast of characters is long. “I am enamored of the rich novels written in the 1950s and 1960s with complex plots and character development,” said Golden. “They’re out of style now. People don’t have the patience for it.” Golden traces the inspiration for the book to his college studies, when he first read James Baldwin, an African-American author to whom he frequently returns. “I have long wanted to write a novel about his position that the reason the ‘Negro question’ was so persistent and dangerous was that it was a catchall for other questions, larger questions about the self.” By the time Wherever There Is Light starts, in the late 1920s, protagonist Julian Rose has already left his native Germany, where his father is a professor, for Newark. He gains his reputation and skills for wheeling and dealing during Prohibition as a protege of the city’s notorious real-life crime kingpin, Abner “Longy” Zwillman — also a Jew — and then amasses a fortune in real estate, allowing him to leave the Newark underworld for classier South Orange. A secular, assimilated Jew who nonetheless talks to God, Rose thinks deeply about the morality of his own actions and those of others (particularly with regard to violence). He arranges for his parents, still in Germany as the Nazis rise to power, to be rescued by a college for black students, founded by the daughter of a former slave, where his father will teach and live. When he goes to visit his parents on the campus of the fictional Lovewood College, he meets Kendall Wakefield, the educated daughter of the college’s president. Defying her mother’s expectations, Kendall decides to pursue her dream of becoming an artist, and then a photographer. She moves, first to New York and New Jersey, and then to Paris to do so. A character who works for an African-American newspaper in Pittsburgh provides a portal to the black press of the day, which, Golden said, was “absolutely, constantly critical and loudly so of Nazis, something the mainstream press did not do. They were relentless on the Nazis, comparing their efforts to lynching.” The Nazis, meanwhile, seized on a reverse comparison. “They’d say, ‘Don’t tell us how to treat our Jews. Look how you treat your Negroes.’” Although Golden acknowledges that postwar Paris was “a complicated place,” he added, “Paris was a much easier place for mixed-race couples. Cafe society was amazing for them. It was a place where races could sit together.” And while the Holocaust cast a long shadow over the city, “Where life was so cheap, they were forced to ask questions about life and meaning.” Although the novel comes to a close during the 1960s, it doesn’t tackle the racial strife that would come to characterize the city. “Newark during the time of the riots brings up a whole other conversation and a whole bunch of questions” that are not part of the novel, the author said. Golden has intentionally turned stereotypes on their heads in the book, and uses the unlikely figure of the mobster to explore assimilation. The choice arose out of his own lifelong interest in Longy Zwillman. “I heard a lot of stories about him growing up, but not gangster stories,” said Golden, who was born in 1953. Both of his grandmothers knew him — one from grammar school and one because her father had a stall on Prince Street that was “protected” by Zwillman. “A lot of what fascinated me was his desire to assimilate [into middle class America] and still hold onto his place in the underworld,” said Golden.

How to read the ‘Bogus’ B.C. election results B.I.C.’s NDP won the B.K.C.-Nunavut election, defeating the governing Liberals by nearly 7,000 votes. But the election also set up the election of an NDP leader and new provincial election to take place in 2018. NDP candidate and former New Brunswick premier Bill Boyd says he expects to take the lead on the provincial election. Boyd, who ran in the New Brunswick provincial election last year, has already announced his candidacy. “We are all in a hurry to get rid of the NDP and we have the momentum in the province,” Boyd said. “I am going to win, I think it’s fair to say.” Boyd, 55, a former cabinet minister, won a seat in the provincial legislature in 2015 after winning the nomination in the legislature. He has been an MLA for seven years. He’s also the mayor of New Glasgow, New Brunswick, which has a population of about 5,200. Boyd also said he would support an NDP government, which would also include the NDP government of New Brunswick Premier Darrell Dexter. The NDP swept the election with more than 56 per cent of the vote. Boyd said he’s “a very pragmatic person” who believes the provincial government needs to get a grip on its finances. “This is not a party of the rich and the powerful,” Boyd told the CBC’s In Focus program. “The NDP will take care of you, I promise you that.” Boyd has campaigned in his riding in recent years, and his victory has raised hopes that he will be able to win the seat in 2018, which is currently held by the Progressive Conservative party. However, Boyd said it is still too early to talk about an official election date. He said he has spoken to a few people who have expressed interest in running in the 2019 provincial election, and the provincial Liberal party has also expressed interest. Boyd will be challenging Premier Dexter, who is facing criticism for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. “You can’t make the same mistakes twice, the NDP will have to learn how to run a government again,” Boyd stated in a recent speech. He added that if he is successful in his bid, he would be the first New Brunswick politician to hold the premier’s job. He also criticized the provincial Liberals for spending too much money on public transit, and he also noted that he did not receive an endorsement from Premier Dexter in the May 2019 provincial budget. The provincial Liberals have already announced they will not participate in the next provincial election scheduled for the fall. However a federal Liberal party spokesman, Ian Hildebrand, told the Vancouver Sun he does not think it is a good idea for a party leader to announce a candidacy before an election. “That would be a terrible mistake, because I think a leader who does that could actually be damaging,” Hildebrand said. In the provincial NDP’s election campaign Boyd was endorsed by the party and by former provincial Premier and Liberal leader Trent Wotherspoon. “It was an honour to run in a riding that was represented by a former premier and the premier and then I think I won a fair amount of support from the party in the riding, which was a very positive thing,” Boyd explained. “But it also was a difficult campaign.” Boyd said that after his defeat he has been very frustrated and disappointed by the way he was treated in the campaign. “For a lot of people to say that I did not deserve it and that I was not prepared for the challenges of the job is really disappointing,” Boyd added. “There was a lot that I had to work with, a lot more than I thought I would have to work.” The NDP has also faced criticism from members of the opposition party for its handling of recent health crises, including a coronaviral pandemic in British Columbia that affected more than 5,000 people and the opioid epidemic in Ontario that has affected about 30,000. “Our health-care system is in crisis, it is broken, it’s not working, it needs to be fixed,” NDP Leader Andrew Weaver said in an interview with the CBC on Friday. “And I believe the NDP has taken on the biggest challenge that we have faced since Confederation, and that is dealing with the pandemic and the fentanyl crisis.” Weaver also criticized Premier Dexter for refusing to call an emergency cabinet meeting for health and safety issues, saying the NDP is “just trying to do the right thing.” “I think it just shows how the Liberals are doing things,” Weaver said. B.I.C.’s NDP won the B.K.C.-Nunavut election, defeating the governing Liberals by nearly 7,000 votes.But the election also set up the…

- Joe Biden. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. This week the nation felt a distinct political shift as President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took office. Within hours of taking on his new role, Biden signed 17 executive orders taking steps to loosen immigration restrictions, fight climate change, ramp up the nation’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, expand LGBTQ protections and more. And he is set to sign 30 executive orders before the first three days of his administration are up. As industrious as Biden’s first week has been, it’s commonly held that the first 100 days of a president’s administration will set the tone for the entire four-year term. That’s why the Biden campaign team issued surrogate Reggie Greer to talk to Detroit’s LGBTQ community the day before the inauguration about the next three months of the presidency. He made mention of the fact that even before his inauguration, Biden exhibited LGBTQ-inclusive policy when his administration nominated Dr. Rachel Levine to be secretary of health. “That’s just an indication that this president is going to make not only historic picks that make history but let people in positions so that we have competency and reasonable people serving the government, because that’s what we deserve,” Greer said. “The LGBTQ community gives me a lot of excitement here. There’s a lot of buckets that the administration will take on. We will see these policies rolled out under these things: economic justice, racial equity, climate equity, and, obviously, COVID-19. If those are your four pillars, then you can think about sort of different plans under those buckets now.” He sat on a panel of LGBTQ community leaders at LGBT Detroit Mobilization, the political arm of Detroit community center, and was joined by LGBT Detroit’s own Social Outreach Coordinator Jerron Totten and Counselor and Community Advocate Chunnika Hodges. Activist Bishop Herman Starks joined them as well. The meeting began with community questions directed toward the local panelists. While they covered various topics, most notably they were asked about the key areas where they’d like to see the Biden Administration make change. Starks listed mass incarceration and criminal justice, Hodges urged a focus on education and targeted research on historically disadvantaged minority groups, and Totten mentioned racial justice. Totten also made a note that he is hopeful that Biden will surround himself with progressive staff and team members, calling on the fact that many who did not vote for Biden or hesitated in doing so were concerned that he was not progressive enough. “Joe Biden has never claimed to be, nor is he the progressive that we looked to get us out of the mess that we’re in. I know he’s capable; I’m a fan of Joe Biden, he’s my former boss. However, I think simple things should happen,” Totten said. “… My hope is that Joe Biden will surround himself with people who are a little more progressive than he is on these issues and they will, in turn, influence some of the decision-making in this administration from Congress to his advisors to his cabinet. Additionally, I’m really just here to point out how we owe Black women in this country a great debt.” Totten then cited the significant amount of grassroots work done by Black women during the campaigning process for the 2020 election. After the community Q&A portion of the meeting was finished, Greer made statements about the Biden Administration’s upcoming work regarding U.S. minorities. He said that it will be a good thing that “no community will be siloed.” “We’re talking about justice and equity for Black Americans, for Latinos, for API [Asian Pacific Islander] folks, people with disabilities, people living with HIV, or LGBTQ+ people. [We’re] going to be ensuring that all those issues are going to be … intersectional across government so that people are able to see themselves in a myriad of policies,” Greer said. Greer then listed passing the Equality Act, ending conversion therapy, inclusive gender markers, rescinding the transgender military ban as administration priorities. He also noted that the presidential advisory council on HIV/AIDS will be reinstated with a focus on diversity along the lines of race, gender, sexual orientation and identity, and geographical alignment. “We’re going to mandate that all government agencies take equality and make it a priority throughout their work in these next four years,” Greer said. “So, LGBTQ+ people that didn’t have a voice at the table cannot be more excited for this moment. We’ve worked so hard to be here, so let’s celebrate tomorrow, but then let’s get to work because we have a lot of work to do.”

With every Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra performance he conducts, Daniel Brier attempts to transport the audience to another realm. Often, this means creating a program that takes listeners out of their comfort zone. That’s exactly what Brier had in mind when he selected Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5 and Dvorak’s Cello Concerto for the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra. The Nov. 17 performance also will feature artist Nina Kotova playing cello. “She’s a wonderful cellist and will bring a lot of great musicianship, flair and passion to the stage,” Brier said. Normally, he said, the Sibelius piece is played during the second half of a concert because the ending features several large chords that are spaced out, so the audience never knows what that last chord will be. “The ending is very enigmatic and thrilling, but it leaves you with more questions than answers,” Brier said. The Dvorak concerto with Kotova on cello is a very strong work that anchors the entire program on its own because of the drama and action it brings to the stage. This piece will feature the musicians playing together and individual musicians playing across the stage from one another. “What makes the Dvorak concerto so unique is that it’s really a symphony with a soloist there,” Brier said. “Everyone on that stage is treated very equally and nearly every instrument section of the symphony has a solo at some point. “The strength of Dvorak leaves you with a magical feeling at the end. With Sibelius, it is magical, but it also leaves you perplexed.” Much of the inspiration for Sibelius’ music drew heavily from the natural beauty, culture and legendary tales of his native Finland. The heroic tales of adventure and magical creatures are a huge part of the cultural fabric of the northern Scandinavian countries, which really comes through in his music. Brier said prior to Sibelius, there had never been a Finnish composer who had achieved fame outside of the country. He became known for the way he treated musical themes, which differed greatly from Germanic composers, such as Beethoven and Brahms. “The Germanic composers would present a theme and play around it,” Brier said. “What Sibelius did was take a small, little idea and everything about that idea would come in, so that by the end, you would hear that theme. Those first few notes became that theme. It evolves right before you.” Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony includes. Brier said Sibelius frequently retreated to the outdoors armed with a glass of brandy and a cigar. Looking up at the sky one day, he saw a flock of 16 swans taking off and noted in his diary that this was the inspiration for the grand theme in his Fifth Symphony. They took off and it was so majestic, it became the ending of his symphony. The diary entry reads: “Today I saw 16 swans. God, what beauty! They circled over me for a long time. Disappeared into the solar haze like a silver ribbon.” Brier said the Greek composers loved to be outdoors, and Beethoven and Brahms were famous for their daily walks, but it is Sibelius who really adopted the natural world into evolutionary forms of music. He thinks the combination of Sibelius and Dvorak will provide compelling moments for the audience. “A program like this, where you have two great pieces that will hold people’s attention from minute one, is a great way to bring new audiences and younger audiences into the concert hall,” Brier said. “It’s music that holds your attention and doesn’t let you daydream.” Sibelius & Dvorak Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra Miller Auditorium 2200 Auditorium Dr., Kalamazoo Nov. 17, 8 p.m. kalamazoosymphony.com Other Shows Paul Shaffer | Nov. 3, 8 p.m. Enjoy an evening with Paul Shaffer, longtime sidekick and bandleader to David Letterman. He performs symphonic renditions of pop, R&B and jazz, interspersed with fascinating stories and memories from his eventful life. Revolution: The Beatles | Dec. 1, 8 p.m Join the world premiere of a symphonic Beatles experience, featuring never-before-seen photos from the official Beatles Book Photo Library in London, alongside stunning new video and animation created by award-winning creative video designer Charles Yurick.

Freshly brewed coffee, kombucha, and chili were some of the homemade foods and drinks that UF students got for free this week. The Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at UF hosted Food Week, a range of food-related events to bring students’ attention to the university’s faculty. The department at UF teaches students about dietetics and nutrition. It also conducts agricultural research, such as the use of kombucha to combat citrus disease. This year marks the fourth straight year of Food Week at UF, despite being over Zoom last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Herschel Johnson, Head of Student Services, Food Science and Human Nutrition, designed this event to showcase the research activities offered to undergraduate and postgraduate students within the department. “A successful outcome would be for some students to see that our programs offer something they see as a valuable avenue to productive careers and encourage them to switch majors,” said Johnson. The week consisted of several activities, including a taste panel, major and minor trade fair, food giveaways, chilli cook-off, diet question and answer, and a master chef-style cooking competition. The UF Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences hosted the first listed event. The event sparked controversy after offering a SNAP challenge to experience poverty. UF’s IFAS description asked participants to live on either $ 4 per day for the Florida Challenge and $ 2 per day for the Global Challenge. Some used social media to label insensitive to the challenge of offering a simulation of poverty rather than supporting causes to combat it. “Science will always be numb and detached from the real world,” wrote one commentator. “For them it’s just another case study.” Another commenter pointed out that SNAP is designed as a complementary utility rather than the sole source of nutrition. Do you enjoy what you read? Receive content from The Alligator in your inbox Susan Percival, division director of the UF’s Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, disagreed with the characterization, saying the challenge is intended to raise awareness of the problem. “[IFAS is] try to raise people’s awareness of global and national problems related to hunger and food systems, ”said Percival. “The expected outcome for us in the challenge was realizing how difficult it is for someone who doesn’t have enough to eat.” Percival said she struggled to keep herself fed up with her $ 4 budget for 24 hours. She believes the challenge drew attention to the difficulties of some students whose starvation worries do not end like the challenge. “I can see where people think it’s silly to do it for 24 hours, but after it’s done it’s not silly at all,” she said. “It was very effective.” However, the program also featured many other carefree events. A Master Chef competition was held on Thursday afternoon in which nine teams of two competed against each other to create the best meal using products from the Hitchcock Field & Fork Food Pantry. Joseph Tinghitella, a 21-year-old political scientist, was one of the students who entered the master chef competition. Competitors had to include either chicken or fish as well as cauliflower, red cabbage or eggplant in their meals, he said. Although Tinghitella did not win first place, Tinghitella said that all of the students had a fun time and there was no animosity between them. “I definitely think it should be something that happens at least once a semester,” he said. “I’ve learned how hard it is to prepare a real meal in a very short time.” Contact Maya Erwin at [email protected] Follow her on Twitter @ MayaErwin3. The Independent Florida Alligator has been university independent since 1971, your donation today could help #SaveStudentNewsrooms. Please remember to give today. Maya Erwin Maya is a third year journalist at the University of Florida covering general university assignments for The Alligator. In her spare time, Maya loves to travel, hang out with friends, and listen to music.

Page 1: Biography Roche, Violet Augusta 1885–1967 Journalist, welfare worker This biography, written by Mary Collie-Holmes, was first published in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography in 2000. Violet Augusta Roche was born on 17 June 1885 in Te Awamutu, the daughter of Constance Gertrude Malcolm and her husband, Robert Warren Roche. Robert Roche had a varied career as a journalist, accountant, settler, agricultural expert, commercial traveller and seedsman. This seems to have brought a slow increase in the family’s prosperity. When Violet was about six they moved from Te Awamutu to Devonport. They later lived in Mount Eden and Remuera. Violet Roche moved to Sydney, possibly with her family, about 1920. She worked as Sydney hostess for the Australian National Travel Association, and then press correspondent of the Hotel Australia. Her ability to charm the well-to-do and the well connected later stood her in good stead. She undertook a world tour during 1934 and 1935, and returned to New Zealand for a visit in 1939–40, when she was described as having ‘an exceptional range of acquaintance with distinguished people’. Roche returned to New Zealand in 1943 as secretary to the local branch of Dr Barnardo’s Homes, a charity for destitute children in Britain. New Zealanders had been sending money, clothes, toys and food to Dr Barnardo’s Homes for 76 years. Until 1914 they had done so without a local presence to inspire them, although there had been tours by concert parties of Barnardo’s boys in 1891 and 1909. From 1914 there were always two to four representatives travelling the country, from 1916 supported by a New Zealand-based secretary. Violet Roche was the fifth appointment to the post. When she arrived at her Wellington headquarters, Dr Barnardo’s in New Zealand had been in slow decline for some years. However, it still had an extensive network of school-based fund-raising groups, called Young Helpers Leagues, and a scattering of small groups of adult supporters. Under her guidance there was a resurgence of interest in the organisation. By 1945 there were league branches in 860 schools, with a total of 22,000 Young Helpers. In 1947 Roche reported nearly 1,000 branches and 35,000 Helpers. This growth was achieved through appealing to adults as much as to children. The organisation had a structured system for children to give, raise funds and be rewarded, but the efforts of adults either fitted into this structure or were left to chance. Violet Roche used her journalistic skills to reach adults from the moment she arrived in the country, organising media interviews nationwide. She also gave herself credibility among the influential by setting up a New Zealand advisory committee of men ‘outstanding in the Church, the Law, in business and philanthropy’. Roche understood that people are motivated to give as much by the desire to achieve community status as by a cause. She ensured that every Barnardo’s function was covered by the local media and she created opportunities for additional activities. The most successful of these were the decorated table display competitions, begun in 1949. All the women’s groups in a community were invited to compete and the competition was always opened by an important public figure. The 33rd and last table display was held in Tokoroa in July 1962. Violet Roche retired, at the age of 78, in 1963. She had never married, and moved from Wellington to Auckland to live with her sister. She was made an MBE in 1964. She continued to work for Dr Barnardo’s as a volunteer, supporting local fund-raising activities, encouraging emigrant ‘old boys’ to meet, and writing for its journal, the Open Door. In 1966 she returned to Sydney to cover the Queen Mother’s visit to the Barnardo Cottage Homes. Later that year she participated in the organisation’s centenary activities in Auckland and Wellington, which included a visit by its London-based general secretary. It was during this visit that the proposal to open a Dr Barnardo’s service in New Zealand was seriously entertained for the first time. It was five years before the first service opened, but Barnardos New Zealand eventually became a thriving provider of child welfare and early childhood education services. Violet Roche’s success in maintaining Dr Barnardo’s Homes as a fashionable cause was a significant factor in the country’s acceptance of the British charity’s plans to open a service here. It was also a significant factor in the continuing support from people who donated to the work in New Zealand because, as children, they had put their pocket money in concertina Barnardo’s boxes to help orphans in England and earned a badge or a pocketknife for their efforts. Violet Roche died at Auckland on 11 February 1967. In her career she had shown superb diplomacy and indefatigable energy and was an excellent public speaker, a brilliant organiser and a wonderful publicist. These attributes enabled her to maintain New Zealand-wide support at an unprecedented level for 20 years for a charity based on the other side of the world.

id=”article-body” class=”row” section=”article-body” data-component=”trackCWV”> San Francisco is looking at to draw in more than movies that lack to pic at iconic locations corresponding the Gold Logic gate Bridge, but that as well privation to deposit close to Northern California for studio apartment body of work. Kent German/CNET When I shout Patrick Ranahan on an afternoon in mid-July, he’s driving John L. H. Down San Francisco’s Embarcadero roadway, reconnoitering cinematography locations for an coming (unannounced) projection. He pulls over to parking area between the Hi Diving Taproom and Red’s Java House, deuce waterfront restaurants snuggled close the Bay Bridge, so we keister lecture. “My world is always out on the street,” he laughs. Ranahan, who’s worked as a position director on the Western United States Glide for more than than 40 years, knows the San Francisco Bay tree Expanse similar the backrest of his handwriting. He tells me astir a margin call he got that dawn for a tv set commercial message that’s conjectural to depict a cross-land actuate in an RV. The burgeon forth calls for altogether kinds of scene — forests, beaches, mountains, clavus and wheat berry W. C. Fields. Without pause, Ranahan lists turned places, wholly just about the Bay laurel Area, that jibe those boxes: and in San Mateo County, and , and the across the Gilded Gate Nosepiece. “You have the whole country,” he says of the Quest Region. CNET Finish Flirt with your mastermind with the coolest news program from streaming to superheroes, memes to video recording games. Though Hollywood has served as the film great of the US for more than than a century, the entire Lucky United States Department of State has been a backdrop for infinite movies, TV shows and commercials. Lured by the soft climate, divers landscapes and unretentive campaign up from LA, studios induce dead reckoning in the , including Bullitt with Steve McQueen and George Lucas’ Land Graffiti, as considerably as Ant-Military man and Mrs. Doubtfire. San Francisco-based , the personal effects adeptness George Lucas founded in 1975, has besides created optic effects for Sir Thomas More than 400 characteristic films. Henry Martyn Robert Rodriguez/CNET Only in Recent years, California’s once ostensibly unshakeable grip on the pic industry has been undermined by cities including Atlanta, Modern Orleans and Vancouver, which self-praise lower berth yield costs and oftentimes higher commercial enterprise incentives for films and TV shows that buck thither. For California, the wager are highschool. Filming is ace of the state’s biggest and most decisive industries, . California has launched its possess $330-million-a-year taxation credit entry program to assist combat the exodus, but it faces street fighter contention from former states and countries, where in that respect are too combined efforts to entice filmmakers. “[These places] all started coming up with really strong incentives that would lure productions elsewhere,” says Susannah Robbins, executive manager of the , which supports productions in the metropolis and provides cinematography permits. “Bottom line: Producers are most concerned about getting the biggest bang for their buck.” For California, guardianship that money in-land is non only a topic of resonant knocked out incentives, simply besides construction up base in places exterior of LA, care the San Francisco Quest Area, so studios make the resources they motive to moving picture thither. “I’d love to be able to say, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve got it all right here in the Bay Area,’ but unfortunately, we don’t right now,” says Mark off Walter, theater director of studio developing for , which has two studios in the Bay tree Area: Moving picture Mare Island in Vallejo and Cinema Prize Bergman Island 2021 Full Movie to Watch Full Movie nigh San Francisco. “A lot of that work is either in Los Angeles or some of these other states that have incentives.” Luring spinal column productions Take incentives, which motley state of matter by State from revenue enhancement credits and exemptions to John Cash grants and other perks, began in the former 2000s as a elbow room to in the ’90s. has as a and early US cities — evening the 2002 big-silver screen version of the musical theater Newmarket in the Visionary Metropolis for Canada. A conducted in 1999 by consulting firm Reminder Party dubbed fugitive pic and TV productions a “persistent, growing, and very significant issue for the US.” In 1998, for instance, 285 of the 1,075 US-developed moving-picture show and TV productions in the study’s oscilloscope were filmed extraneous the country, a 185% climb up from 100 productions in 1990. This resulted in $10.3 billion in economical release for the US that year, and light-emitting diode to more than than 20,000 full-time-equal jobs being cut, according to the study. All but of those productions were lured by incentives in Canada, piece a part went to the UK and Australia. “The entertainment industry was born in California, and it’s imperative that we continue to provide the most competitive conditions so that we complete productions here and lure them from other jurisdictions.” Colleen Bell, executive director director of the California Moving-picture show Commission In response, various US states distinct to ringlet verboten exchangeable programs to helper maintain the movie and TV line of work at home, merely just now non in California. Those measures in the end resulted in Major productions shot in places that are Interahamwe from Hollywood. Marvel movies the like Avengers: Endgame and Opprobrious Panther, for instance, , patch award-victorious films the likes of Infernal region or High school H2O and Independence Day: Revivification were . Seeing these former states stressful to snatch a tack of the pic wheel, in 2009, providing $100 trillion in credits per year terminated eight long time to Chosen feature films and TV projects. In 2014, the DoS revised the program, increasing the total of credits to $330 million a year. The third base looping of California’s Photographic film and TV Assess Acknowledgment Broadcast kicked murder final July, and is also funded at . (A revenue enhancement quotation removes a part of the income tax a production fellowship owes to the tell.) California’s computer program has had a convinced affect on the express so far, officials enjoin. On-position motion-picture photography in the greater Los Angeles orbit , according to a paper by the metropolis and county’s official moving picture power FilmL.A. Movies similar Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Fable of the Decade Rings, which guessing in San Francisco, posterior fetch millions of dollars to the local economy. Marvel Colleen Bell, administrator director of the Calif. Motion-picture show Commission, says productions approved in the sec loop of the state’s assess deferred payment computer program are on path to bring forth roughly $11.2 zillion in guide in-res publica spending, largely offsetting the $1.55 1000000000 they accepted in tax credits. from other states and countries through the program, she says, including The Fledge In attendance (which previously filmed in Fresh York), Chad (which had been motion-picture photography in Vancouver) and Solid ground Repulsion News report (which had nip in Louisiana). “We have to improve and maintain our competitiveness,” Vanessa Bell says. “The entertainment industry was born in California, and it’s imperative that we continue to provide the most competitive conditions so that we complete productions here and lure them from other jurisdictions.” Immediately playing: Observe this: Coronavirus could dissemble movies for years 6:08 It’s not simply former US states that are stressful to appeal productions. Cities equal Sydney, Capital of the United Kingdom and Budapest too birth incentives and declamatory motion-picture photography studios. Pinewood Studios alfresco British capital is the interior of the franchise, and deuce of the prequel films were dead reckoning at Befuddle Studios in Sydney. Australia has also . Spell protecting the US shoot diligence mightiness seem frivolous or insignificant to some (later on all, many audiences May not deal where something is shot), it rear end induce a substantial bear upon on the economy, as indicated by the Admonisher Party describe. Sales from intellect property, which includes software, movies and TV shows, in 2017, according to CNN. “[Film] is one of the largest exports this country has,” says Steve Dayan, secretary-financial officer of Teamsters Local 399, which represents workers in the flick industriousness. “Our economy benefits as a result of the good-paying jobs that the film industry ends up creating.” Beyond LA Efforts to bestow moving picture and TV production hind to California are mostly focussed on the Los Angeles area, merely includes an extra 5% task accredit for non-fencesitter projects that pip out-of-door LA’s , an orbit that extends from the crossway of Beverly and La Cienega boulevards. San Francisco also launched its own movie incentive, called the , in 2006, which offers modification productions a on whatsoever fees paying to the city. Robbins says approximately 26 films experience exploited that program since its inception, including Gamey Jasmine, and . Iconic locations care the Multi-colored Ladies in San Francisco get helped draw in filmmakers for age. Getty Images A grownup reason out California and former states deprivation to tempt studios is, non surprisingly, to clear money. Robbins says if a production uses the View in San Francisco rebate broadcast and shoots for 23 days, for instance, eating and lodging the stamp and work party could commit betwixt $3 billion and $4 1000000 into the local anaesthetic economic system. She says when the be sick and work party of The guessing in San Francisco in former 2020, they stayed for a month and set-aside about 16,000 hotel nights. “When we have a, they’re putting far more than that into our local economy, in a very short period of time. … Film really does inject a lot of money into the economy.” Guardianship projects inside California backside likewise be critical to actors and crowd members WHO aren’t able to relocate for tenacious periods of sentence owed to household or early obligations. Convincing talent to abide someplace inside driving distance of LA for a TV serial is a lot easier than convincing them to run kayoed of body politic to a berth ilk Albuquerque, Bruno Walter says. “I think talent wouldn’t mind relocating from LA to the Bay Area,” he says. “I did it, and I love it.” Moshe Dayan says respective members of Teamsters 399 get permanently leftover Golden State as the photographic film manufacture expands to early states, determined in separate by the frown toll of aliveness in early areas. If you loved this short article and you would certainly such as to receive even more details relating to kindly visit the web-site. But he notes that not exclusively has California’s assess accredit programme benefited populate in the film diligence by attracting more than projects, just it’s as well helped restaurants, hotels and other tourism-related businesses and their employees. “When we leave LA and go to Fresno or Bakersfield or San Francisco or San Diego, we’re taking a large portion of our crew,” Dayan said. “All of those things benefit the state.” Post-lockdown production boom Of course, the forced movie and TV product more or less the human race to . In its conclusion deuce business enterprise years, San Francisco issued roughly half the usual act of moving-picture show permits (dropping to 361 permits in fiscal year 2019-20 and 263 permits in 2020-21) and sawing machine to a lesser extent than half the turn of dissipate days, Robbins says. Just because the cobbler’s last twelvemonth and , it had a better hold on the pandemic than many parts of the res publica. As a result, producers from harder-attain Newfangled House of York and LA began flocking to San Francisco final stage summer for transaction and still photograph production. “[Film] is one of the largest exports this country has. Our economy benefits as a result of the good-paying jobs that the film industry ends up creating.” Steve Dayan, secretary-financial officer of Teamsters Local anaesthetic 399 Now with , cinema and TV output is backward in to the full golf stroke throughout the nation. Jerome Robbins says a smattering of productions, which she can’t still name, are slated to scoot in the Embayment Field this twilight and winter, spelling verboten a busy few months leading. Encourage south, Gong says there’s been such high-pitched need for contentedness that stages in LA are at maximal capacity. This has been exacerbated by , which left audiences thirstily ready and waiting for the future seasons of their preferred shows to strike streaming platforms comparable Netflix or Hulu. At once studios john at last piece of work on creating that backlog of subject. “The studios have platforms to feed,” Dayan says. “It’s gone from complete shutdown and unemployment to 100% employment.” Things are pick up in Hollywood and close to Calif. later COVID-19 lockdowns. Getty Images Fully engaged LA stages behind as well long pillow the Alcove Orbit as a motion-picture photography and production hub as companies aspect for heart-to-heart studio apartment space, says Bruno Walter. Close to han a few age ago, the city and its circumferent areas served as stand-ins for places close to the globe including Cuba, Spain and China. “What brings people here is that we can find a block or two of anywhere in the world,” Ranahan says. “As I drive around, I can find it.” If you liked this report and you would like to receive additional information relating to played host to Marvel’s Thor movies kindly take a look at our own webpage.

Acadia. History of the Name "Acadia" Acadia has its origins in Giovanni da Verrazzano’s, an Italian explorer serving the king of France, travels to North America. In 1524-1525, he explored the Atlantic coast and gave the name "Archadia", or “Arcadia” in Italian, to a region near the present-day American state of Delaware. In 1566, the cartographer Bolongnino Zaltieri gave a similar name, "Larcadia," to an area far to the northeast of present-day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Portuguese explorer Estêvão Gomes’ notes from 1524 also included Newfoundland as part of the area he called “Arcadie” (see also Acadia). Acadia’s naming (Acadie) may also have had Indigenous roots. Perhaps from the Mi’kmaq word for camp, or “Algatig”. Alternatively, from the Indigenous term “Quoddy” which refers to a fertile land. French Presence (1534-1713) The abundance of cod off the coast of Newfoundland was well-known long before Jacques Cartier’s arrival (see Norse voyages; Fisheries History). In 1534, during the first of three trips to Canada, Cartier made contact with Mi’kmaqs in Chaleur Bay. The first French colonists did not arrive, however, until 1604 under the leadership of Pierre du Gua de Monts and Samuel de Champlain. De Monts settled the 80-odd colonists at Île Sainte-Croix on the St Croix River. The winter of 1604–1605 was disastrous, scurvy killing at least 36 men. The next year the colony looked for a new site and chose Port-Royal. When some French merchants challenged his commercial monopoly, de Monts took everyone back to France in 1607; French colonists did not return until 1610. At around this time, the French also formed alliances with the two main Aboriginal peoples of Acadia, the Mi’kmaqs and the Maliseet. Other factors also stifled Acadia's development. In 1613, Samuel Argall, an adventurer from Virginia, seized Acadia and chased out most of its settlers. In 1621, the government renamed Acadia to Nova Scotia. In 1629, he also allowed the Scottish settlers of Sir William Alexander to move in. Alexander's project of Scottish expansion was cut short in 1632 by the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which allowed France to regain Acadia. In 1631, France appointed Charles La Tour as lieutenant-general of Acadia. He built strongholds at Cape Sable and at the mouth of the Saint John River (Fort La Tour, later Saint John). Renewed Presence and Settlement Renewed settlement efforts took place under Governor Isaac de Razilly, who moved the capital from Port-Royal to La Hève (today LaHave) on the south shore of present-day Nova Scotia. He arrived in 1632 with "300 gentlemen of quality." A sailor by trade, Razilly was more interested in sea-borne trade than in agriculture and this influenced his decision where to establish settlements. French missionaries participated in the colonial venture as early as 1613. By the 1680s, a few wooden churches with resident priests were established. Razilly died in 1635, leaving Charles de Menou D'Aulnay and La Tour to quarrel over his succession. D'Aulnay moved the capital back to Port-Royal, then proceeded to wage a civil war against La Tour, who was solidly established in the region. D'Aulnay was convinced that the colony's future lay in agricultural development which would provide a stable food supply and population. Before his death in 1650, D'Aulnay was responsible for the arrival of some 20 families. With the arrival of more families, agricultural production was stabilized while adequate food and clothing became available. French-English enmity once again affected Acadia's fate, causing it to be conquered by the English in 1654. The region was, however, given back to France through the Treaty of Breda (1667). In 1690, the colony was taken by the New England adventurer Sir William Phips and once again returned to France again through the Treaty of Ryswick (1697). Establishment of New Colonies Starting in the 1670s, colonists left Port-Royal to found other settlements, 1,400; in 1711, some 2,500; in 1750, over 10,000; and in 1755, over 13,000 (Louisbourg excluded). These highly self-reliant Acadians farmed and raised livestock on marsh lands. The Acadians drained the marshes using a technique of tide-adaptable barriers called aboiteaux, thus making agriculture possible. They hunted, fished, and trapped. They even had commercial ties with the English colonists in America, despite French authorities’ objections. Acadians considered themselves "neutral" since Acadia had been transferred a few times between the French and the English. By not taking sides, they hoped to avoid military backlash. Peninsular Acadia was not the only region with a French population along the Atlantic. In the 1660s, France established a fishing colony at Plaisance (now Placentia,. Under British Rule Following the War of Spanish Succession (1701–1713), Acadia fell under British rule for the final time. Through the Treaty of Utrecht, Plaisance was ceded along with the territory which consisted of "Acadia according to its ancient boundaries." However, France and England failed to agree on a definition of those boundaries. For the French, the territory only included the present peninsular Nova Scotia. The English, however, claimed what is today New Brunswick, Gaspé, and Maine. Difficult Neighbours (1713–1763) Following the loss of "Ancient Acadia", France concentrated on developing Île Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island) and Île Royale (Cape Breton Island). These two regions had been until then largely ignored. On Île Royale, Louisbourg was chosen as the new capital. Louisbourg had three roles: a new fishing post to replace Plaisance; a strong military presence; and a centre for trade. Île St-Jean was more looked upon as the agricultural extension of Île Royale. The Treaty of Utrecht theoretically allowed for the Acadians to move to other French colonies. The Acadians, however, showed little desire in doing so. Those other colonies lacked the marshes that were so vital to Acadians’ agricultural system. Moreover, the British authorities at Port-Royal (renamed Annapolis Royal) did not help with the Acadians’ relocation. Instead, they interfered in the process. The British were worried about emptying the colony of its population while increasing the population of Île Royale. Acadian farmers were also needed to provide subsistence for the garrison. Except for the garrison at Port-Royal, the British made virtually no further attempt at colonization until 1749. The colony was also once again renamed to Nova Scotia. From 1713 to 1744, the small English presence and a long peace allowed the Acadian population to grow at a rapid pace. To some historians, it is considered Acadia's "Golden Age." Britain demanded that its conquered subjects swear an oath of unconditional loyalty. The Acadians, however, agreed only to an oath of neutrality. Unable to impose the unconditional oath, Governor Richard Philipps gave his verbal agreement to this semi-allegiance in 1729–1730. In 1745, during the War of the Austrian Succession, Louisbourg fell to an English expeditionary force whose land army was largely composed of New England colonists. However, France regained the fortress through the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), to the great displeasure of the New England colonies. It was in this context that Britain decided to make the Nova Scotian territory "truly" British. Deportation In 1749, the capital was moved from Annapolis Royal to Halifax. Intended to serve as both a military and a commercial counterweight to Louisbourg, Halifax was selected because it was a better seaport and was far from the Acadian population centres. Britain finally took steps to bring its own settlers into the colony. They came primarily from England and from German territories with British connections such as Hanover and Brunswick. From 1750 to 1760, an estimated 7,000 British colonists and 2,400 Germans arrived to settle in Nova Scotia. Moreover, in 1750, the British built Fort Lawrence to keep an eye on the French and their Mi’kmaq allies. The fort was also meant to protect potential English settlers and stop any possible land invasion from Canada. The French authorities reacted by building Fort Beausejour in 1751 (near Sackville, New Brunswick) to prevent the British from crossing the Isthmus of Chignecto and attacking "new" Acadia. With Louisbourg and Canada in the north, Fort Beauséjour in the east, and an Acadian population viewed as a potential rebellious threat, the British authorities decided to settle the Acadian question once and for all. By refusing to pledge an unconditional oath of allegiance, the population would risk deportation. The British first captured Fort Beauséjour and then once again demanded an unconditional pledge of allegiance from the Acadians. Caught between English threats and fears of French and Indigenous retaliation, Acadian representatives were summoned to appear before Governor Charles Lawrence. Taking the advice of Father Le Loutre, the representatives initially refused to make the pledge, but they ultimately decided to accept. Lawrence, dissatisfied with an oath pledged with reluctance, executed the plans for deportation in 1755. The Socio-Political Context of the Deportation The deportation occurred as a result of the contemporary geopolitical situation and was not an individual choice made by Lawrence. He knew that British troops under General Braddock had just been bitterly defeated by French forces in the Ohio Valley (see Fort Duquesne). Fears of a combined attack by Louisbourg and Canada against Nova Scotia, theoretically joined by the Acadians and the Mi’kmaq, explains, to a certain degree, the order for deportation. The deportation process, once instigated, lasted from 1755 to 1762. The Acadians were put into ships and deported to English colonies along the eastern seaboard as far south as Georgia. Some eventually found their way to Louisiana and helped found “Cajun” culture. (See also French-speaking Louisiana and Canada). Others managed to flee to French territory or to hide in the woods. It is estimated that three-quarters of the Acadian population were deported; the rest avoided this fate by escaping. An unknown number of Acadians perished from hunger or disease. A few ships full of exiles sank on the high seas with their passengers onboard. (See also Acadian Expulsion). In 1756, the Seven Years' War broke out between France and England. The two French colonies,. The Treaty of Treaty of Paris (1763) definitively put an end to the French colonial presence in the Maritimes and in most of New France. Anglicization (1763-1880) After 1763, the Maritimes took on a decidedly British face when New England planters settled on lands previously inhabited by the Acadians. English names replaced French or Mi’kmaq ones almost everywhere. The British at first reorganized the territory into a single province, Nova Scotia. In 1769, however, they detached the former Île Saint-Jean, which became a separate province under the name of Saint John's Island. The island received its present name of Prince Edward Island in 1799. In 1784, present-day New Brunswick was in turn separated from Nova Scotia, following the arrival of American Loyalists who demanded their own colonial administration. As for the Acadians, they began the long and painful process of resettling themselves in their homeland. Britain. These remaining Acadians headed for Cape Breton, where some established themselves along the coast by the Île Madame and on the island itself. Others settled on the southwest tip of the Nova Scotia peninsula and along St Mary's Bay while others went to northwestern New Brunswick (Madawaska). A small number also established themselves in Prince Edward Island, but the majority of Acadians went to the eastern parts of New Brunswick. Economic Decline British authorities preferred to see the Acadians spread out over the region. This policy suited the Acadians since it allowed them to avoid regions with a British majority. This in turn allowed British settlers to occupy the lands previously owned by the Acadians. Most Acadians, except for those on Prince Edward Island and in Madawaska, found themselves on less fertile land. As such, these former farmers became fishermen or lumber workers, cultivating their land only for subsistence. As fishermen, they were exploited and reduced to poverty, especially by companies from the Isle of Jersey. In 1746, British forces defeated a Scottish Catholic uprising in the Battle of Culloden during the Jacobite rebellion. In the wake of the rebellion, the British Crown stripped the Acadians of their civil and political rights because they too were Catholics. Acadians were denied the right to vote and could not be members of the legislature. From 1758 to 1763, they could not legally own land. It is only later, in 1789, that Nova Scotian Acadians gained the right to vote. Those in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island had to wait until 1810. After 1830, Acadians could sit in the legislatures of all three colonies following the enactment of the Roman Catholic Relief Act. Seeds of a New Acadia In general, Acadians at the start of the 19th century had virtually no institutions of their own. The Catholic Church was the only francophone institution in the Maritimes, but its clergy mostly came from Quebec or France. There were few Francophone schools and teachers, for the most part, were simple "travelling masters" who spread their knowledge from village to village. There was no French newspaper. Nor were there any lawyers or doctors. In fact, there was no Acadian middle class. However, whether they were conscious of it or not, these Acadians’ continued survival sowed the seeds of a new Acadia. At the start of the 19th century, there were 4,000 Acadians in Nova Scotia, 700 in Prince Edward Island, and 3,800 in New Brunswick. Acadians’ population growth during that century was remarkable: they were around 87,000 at the time of Confederation and 140,000 at the turn of the 20th century. Collective Awareness and Identity The Acadians began to express themselves as a people during the 1830s. They elected their first legislative representatives in the three Maritime provinces in the 1840s and 1850s. The poem Evangeline (1847) by American author Henry W. Longfellow went through several French translations and was widely influential. In Acadia itself, a pastor born in Quebec, François-Xavier Lafrance, opened in 1854 the first French-language institution of higher learning, the Séminaire Saint-Joseph in New Brunswick. It closed in 1862 but was reopened two years later by Quebec priests from the congregation of the Holy Cross under the name of Collège Saint-Joseph (later amalgamated into the Université de Moncton). In 1867, the first French-language paper in the Maritimes, Le Moniteur Acadien, was established in Shédiac, New Brunswick. This paper was followed by L'Évangéline (1887-1982) in Digby, Nova Scotia, and in 1893 by L'Impartial in Tignish, Prince Edward Island. Religious orders came to Acadia where they played a vital role in education and health care. The Sisters of the order of Notre Dame of Montréal opened boarding schools in Prince Edward Island at Miscouche (1864) and Tignish (1868). Also in 1868, the Sisters of Saint Joseph took charge of the maritime quarantine station at Tracadie (now Tracadie-Sheila), New Brunswick. They also established themselves in Saint-Basile, where their boarding school would eventually become Maillet College. Just prior to Confederation, Acadians made themselves heard in a remarkable way in Maritime politics. In New Brunswick, a majority of Acadians voted against Confederation on two different occasions. Though a large number of politicians accused them of being reactionary, Acadians were not the only group to oppose Confederation. The Nationalist Age (1881-1950) As of the 1860s, an Acadian middle-class had begun to take shape. Though Saint-Joseph College and Sainte-Anne College (1890) in Church Point, Nova Scotia, definitely contributed to the emergence of an intellectual elite, there were at least four elite categories in Acadia. The two most conspicuous were the clergy and the members of the liberal professions such as doctors and lawyers. Meanwhile, Acadian farmers and tradesmen, who did not profit from the same financial resources as their English-speaking counterparts, nonetheless succeeded in distinguishing themselves. Starting in 1881, Acadian national conventions became forums where Acadians could establish a consensus about important projects. These included the promotion of agricultural development, French education, and the Acadianization of the Catholic clergy. Assemblies were held intermittently in different Acadian localities until 1930. Acadians founded the Société Nationale de l'Acadie whose purpose was to promote Acadian culture. National symbols were chosen: a flag (the French tricolour with a yellow star in the blue stripe), a national holiday (the Feast of the Assumption, celebrated on 15 August), a slogan ("L'union fait la force"), and a national anthem (Ave Maris Stella). A major victory was gained through Monseigneur Edouard le Blanc's appointment in 1912 as Acadia's first bishop. Moreover, between 1881 and 1925, at least three Acadian female religious orders were formed. These orders’ convents greatly contributed to improving the education of Acadian women and enhancing the cultural life of the community. These orders also founded the first colleges for girls in Acadia, at Memramcook, New Brunswick (1913), Saint-Basile, New Brunswick (1949) and Shippagan, New Brunswick (1960). Urbanization Meanwhile, an important socioeconomic turning point was taking place. Namely with Acadians’ catching up to the pattern of industrialization and urbanization across Canada. Though the migration of Acadians to the cities was less pronounced than in other parts of Canada, a large number of them nevertheless moved to major cities. Popular destinations included Moncton, Yarmouth, and Amherst as well as the cities of New England to work in factories and mills. Certain members of the Acadian elite considered this to be a dangerous development towards assimilation into the Anglo-Saxon majority. Attempts were made between 1880 and 1940 to reduce the numbers of people leaving to exile. There were also efforts to divert Acadians away from the largely foreign company-owned fisheries industry and to help families fight the harsh realities of the Great Depression. The Co-Operative Movement in the 1930s finally allowed fishermen, after generations of exploitation, to regain control of their livelihood. (See also Antigonish Movement). Certain distinctive regional features also emerged. Because of their larger community size, the New Brunswick Acadians took the lead in speaking for Acadians as a whole. Cultural Recognition In the 1950s, Acadians started to make an impact at many levels on the economy, the politics, and the culture of the Maritime Provinces. By preserving their values and culture at home, they were able to develop a French education system (mainly in New Brunswick). The vigour and distinctiveness of their culture shielded them from the devastation of assimilation and helped them be recognized as a minority people within the Maritimes. In terms of advantages, almost all Acadians have access to an education in French. St. Anne University in Nova Scotia and the Université de Moncton in New Brunswick provide francophones with the choice of two post-secondary educational institutions offering full programs in French. The Liberal government of Premier Louis J. Robichaud made New Brunswick officially bilingual in 1969 (which does not, however, guarantee municipal services in French). All these victories are not a guarantee of survival. The 1960s saw a sovereignty movement in Quebec and an anti-bilingualism movement in the West take the stage at the national level. Ironically, as had happened in the 1750s, Acadians became caught in the middle. Nevertheless, they were able to make some gains to preserve their rights.

Personality profiling reveals the hidden behavior of cleaner fish used to control parasites in salmon aquaculture. Chief prosecutor Karim Khan announces the ICC will open an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity in Venezuela. Also, the US has added NSO Group, the Israeli company behind the controversial Pegasus spyware, to its trade blacklist. And, the UK approves Molnupiravir, the first antiviral oral pill found to be effective in treating symptomatic COVID-19. Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Gil Scott-Heron had a profound influence on many aspiring poets including Malik al-Nasir and his band, Malik and the OGs. Nasir joined The World's host Marco Werman to talk about his lifelong connection with Scott-Heron recounted in his new book, "Letters to Gil." Here's what you need to know about the big UN climate summit in Glasgow. Beatles degree dives into the band's shifting perceptions over more than half a century, and how it's affected other sectors such as tourism. Holly Tessler, the professor who founded the program, joined The World's host Marco Werman to explain more about what the degree entails. Top of The World: A trove of leaked documents, referred to as the Pandora Papers, has revealed the secret assets of hundreds of world leaders. And, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced plans to walk back her government’s zero-tolerance strategy to the coronavirus pandemic. Also, American scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian have been awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine.

According to Nielson Music, Prince’s albums and songs have sold 7.7 million copies since his death in April of 2016, and during that same year, he sold more albums than any other artist. Of the 7.7 million copies that were sold since Prince’s death until the week ending April 13, 2.3 million were traditional album and song sales, while 5.4 million were from digital song downloads. For comparison, the 5.4 million digital downloads made up around a third of his total digital downloads, totaling 18.64 million, since Nielson started tracking them in 2003. Additionally, the 2.3 million traditional album and song sales far outstripped those for 2015, where he sold 280,000 albums. With a total of 2.23 album copies sold, Prince outstripped any other artist for album sales in 2016, even surpassing Adele, who sold 2.21 million albums. Most of those sales were made during the month following Prince’s death, with 5.65 million sales registered between April 21 and May 19, 2016. This year, the sales are back down to nearly the same level as they were prior to Prince’s passing, with track sales at 286,000, while last year they were at almost 270,000. Album sales remain high, though, at around twice what they were last year prior to his death, though this could be because of the release of 4Ever, since new albums generate higher sales.

By Pushkala Aripaka (Reuters) -. EMA said Merck's COVID-19 tablet, Lagevrio, developed with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, should be given early and within five days of first symptoms to treat adults who do not need oxygen support and are at risk of their disease worsening. It advised against treatment during pregnancy and for women who plan to or could get pregnant, while adding that breastfeeding must also be stopped around the time of using the pill, which is to be taken twice a day for. EMERGENCY USE Pfizer this week applied for U.S. emergency use authorisation of its tablet following data that showed the pill cut the chance of hospitalisation or death by 89% in adults who are at risk of their illness worsening. Merck's pill, which was approved by Britain earlier this month, has been shown halve those chances when given early in the illness. While vaccines are central to the fight against the pandemic, regulators are looking at therapies, including the Pfizer and Merck pills, and EMA last week backed drugs from Regeneron-Roche and Celltrion. Unlike the regulators in the United States, the world's biggest pharmaceuticals market, the European Union's EMA does not have emergency use procedures for treatments or vaccines, and often relies on a lengthier process for authorisation. But faced with rising COVID-19 cases, the EMA has offered its scientific expertise to nations that may need advice on early-use before any wider recommendations by the regulator. It has done that for the antibody-based treatment sotrovimab from GSK-Vir, the generic steroid dexamethasone and Gilead's remdesivir antiviral. While reviews on COVID-19 pills are ongoing, the EU is also negotiating with Merck and Pfizer over possible contracts to supply their tablets, an official told Reuters last week, adding that talks with Merck were more advanced. (Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur, Giles Elgood and Barbara Lewis)

COVID-19 News Update (July 7): US death tolls passes 130,000, Australia closes state border US coronavirus death toll passes 130,000 More local and state leaders on Monday embraced new restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus as the United States entered its 28th day reporting record-high average infections. Eleven states and Puerto Rico hit new highs in their seven-day rolling average of new cases on Monday, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. Seven states posted new highs for current COVID-19 hospitalizations. The United States passed another grim coronavirus milestone as the death toll from the virus climbed past 130,000, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. The country has had 2,888,729 COVID-19 cases and 130,007 deaths as of midday in Washington, the university reported. The world's hardest hit country, both in confirmed cases and deaths, the United States has experienced a resurgence of the disease since June that has forced several states to suspend their phased economic reopenings. Australia closes state border for the first time in 100 years The border between Australia’s two most populous states will close from Tuesday for an indefinite period as authorities scramble to contain an outbreak of the coronavirus in the city of Melbourne, reported by Reuters. The decision announced on Monday marks the first time the border between Victoria and New South Wales has been shut in 100 years. Officials last blocked movement between the two states in 1919 during the Spanish flu pandemic.. India recorded a single-day jump of 1379 fresh cases. According to The Indian Express, percent to 10 percent in the last three weeks. The government also said that the national positivity rate, percentage of samples testing coronavirus positive from the total number of samples, has also reduced and now stands at 6.73 percent. Brazil's President shows symptoms of COVID-19 infection Latin America continues to be a hot spot for the Covid-19 epidemic, with Brazil being the most affected country in the region and the second most affected in the world. Notably, July 6 saw the number of new Covid-19 cases falling sharply compared to the previous days, at 18,699 cases as of 6 pm on July 7, the lowest increase since June 21. According to The World and Vietnam Magazine, on the same day, CNN television channel in Brazil reported that President Jair Bolsonaro had symptoms of Covid-19 infection. He had been sampled for testing but had to wait for the results in the next 24 hours. China continues reporting new cases The National Health Commission of China (NHC) announced the record of four new infections in mainland China, including one reported domestic infection in Beijing. There were no deaths on July 5. The total number of infections in China is currently 83,557, including 4,634 deaths. In many other parts of Asia, COVID-19 infection figures continue to rise. In Indonesia, the Ministry of Health announced an additional 1,209 new infections and 70 deaths, bringing the total number of Covid-19 cases in the Southeast Asian country to 64,958 and 3,241 deaths. The Philippines also reported an additional 2,099 new infections and 6 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of Covid-19 cases in the country to 46,333 and 1,303 deaths. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government of Japan on July 6 announced an additional 102 new cases, becoming the fifth consecutive day that Tokyo recorded new cases in excess of 100. With the above new cases, the total number of new cases Covid-19 in the city increased to 6,867, amid growing concerns about the risk of a second outbreak. Pakistan Health Minister Zafar Mirza announced that he had tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This is the latest high-ranking Pakistani official with Covid-19. Up to now, Pakistan has recorded 231,818 people infected, including 4,762 patients<<

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Jewellery news every morning. We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Jewellery news every morning. London’s Frieze Art Fair always attracts the great and the good of the gallery world, but this year’s event is also firmly marked in the diary of jeweller Cindy Chao. On 11 October, her bespoke Aquatic Coral earrings will be auctioned at the Art of Wishes charity gala, the proceeds of which will go to Make-A-Wish — the charity that helps fulfil the wishes of children with a critical illness. Chao’s jewellery will share the auction block with work from contemporary artists including Jenny Saville, known for her paintings of nude women, and Kaws, the American graffiti artist. The earrings will be the only jewellery in the live auction. The inclusion of Chao in the event, to be held at the Natural History Museum, highlights the trend for cross-collecting in the two cultural spheres — where jewellery appeals to art collectors and vice versa. Batia Ofer, the London billionaire art collector and founder of the Art of Wishes, believes that contemporary art and jewellery “definitely exist side by side”. Ofer says that, unlike traditional buyers, she does not buy jewellery because of the value of the stones. “I look at the craftsmanship, what inspired the jeweller and how they carried out the combination of materials and colours,” she says. “There’s so much creativity that goes into the process.” The earrings created for the charity by Chao, whose Shanghai business employs 12 people, reflect that. Set in a medley of sapphires, emeralds and diamonds, they were inspired by a painting by Mark Rothko that is owned by Ofer. “It makes the story more meaningful,” Chao says. “The collaborative journey has very much been a conversation through art.” Despite never having met in person, Chao and Ofer have mutual friends, most of whom are art collectors. “A common thread with my clients, in addition to being successful in their own businesses, is that they have a strong artistic aesthetic in terms of collecting — whether painting, sculpture, wine,” says Chao. “It’s a very sophisticated level.” Chao’s earrings have an estimated sale price of £160,000 to £220,000, but the link between jewellery and art is not found only with big-ticket items. Since 2020, Phillips Asia has hosted a series of cross-category online sales called Intersect, where contemporary art, watches and jewellery are sold at a single auction. The lots are priced lower than in a live auction and many of the artworks are edition prints — with pieces by Kaws, Banksy and Yayoi Kusama particularly popular. September’s Intersect brought in more than HK$30.7m ($3.94m), exceeding March’s Intersect sale by 46 per cent, with all lots sold. Sixty per cent of the buyers were from Asia with just over 40 per cent aged below 40. Half of buyers were new to Phillips. The success of Intersect, says Graeme Thompson, worldwide head of jewellery at Phillips, reflects changing tastes, especially in Asia where jewellery is viewed as a luxury lifestyle offering that is informed by contemporary art and design (at Phillips, half of jewellery buyers globally buy in its other categories, which predominantly have a contemporary focus). Buyers in Asia increasingly make their money in the tech, finance and cryptocurrency sectors, notes Thompson, and have cash to spend on luxury goods. These assets are seen as “a store of wealth and definitely something they get enjoyment from,” he says. “They’re a talking point and tell a story. You can show them off to friends. That’s particularly relevant to buyers of luxury assets today.” The jewels in Intersect reflect the art. “It’s a little bit colourful — which resonates a lot with our buyers, particularly art buyers — and, more importantly, the jewellery is easy to wear,” Thompson adds. “It doesn’t need to be black tie, chandelier-type jewellery. It can be for a smart restaurant for lunch, looking great and having a fantastic piece of jewellery to accompany an outfit.” Sotheby’s also credits the Asian market with leading the way in cross-collecting, which was the result of an accident of logistics. Sotheby’s Hong Kong groups its sale categories into two seasons, whereas Europe and the US have discrete departments, often with their own separate auction calendars. But the Hong Kong auction house found that mixing the likes of Chinese ink painting and contemporary art with jewellery worked surprisingly well. “People thought it was so much fun,” says Patti Wong, chair of Sotheby’s Asia. “Collecting today has to be fun. It cannot just be, ‘let’s read tons of books and go really deep and attend every single museum show.’” Sotheby’s has since extended its offering “for collecting horizontally rather than just for depth”, says Wong. “It’s more of an experience — we try to make collecting much more part of lifestyle, with an enjoyment for learning about other categories all the time, and discovering new things.” This openness works both ways. In May, Sotheby’s became the first big auction house to accept payment by cryptocurrency for a work of art (Banksy’s Love is in the Air), which inspired Wong to extend the payment method to purchases of diamonds. In July, a 101.38ct diamond was bought in this way for HK$95.1m — the highest price for any jewellery or gemstone purchased with cryptocurrency. The buyer, notes Wong, was not thought to have bought jewellery at auction before. Contemporary developments are reflected in cross-collecting sales. The Art of Wishes auction will feature a non-fungible token for the first time; while many lots were chosen to highlight social issues. Ofer says that Rashid Johnson’s Untitled Anxious Red recalls last year’s protests over George Floyd’s murder, while Chao’s inclusion is important as it helps to raise awareness of the stigma that some people attached to Asians after the emergence of Covid. Get alerts on Jewellery when a new story is published

What Is a Nature Reserve? Humans have explored most of the world and have populated much of it. As the human species has had a strong effect on the land compared to other organisms, governments have set aside parcels of land as nature reserves. In these areas the natural wildlife and plant species can grow with little interference from humans. Typically, people can enter a nature reserve for leisure purposes, but cannot make significant changes to the ecosystem, or develop any of the land. There is no single definition for the rules of a nature reserve. Instead, the regulations as to what constitutes a nature reserve depends on the country. Some international regulations, such as the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage site regulations, do have the same rules across countries that have signed up to abide by the rules of that organization. Typically, though, the term "nature reserve" is a general one, that can be used to refer to any area of land that is protected due to its natural inhabitants. Most often, a governmental agency designates a certain area of land as a nature reserve due to the exceptional native organisms that live there. These special organisms may be a particularly good example of an uncommon native species, or a particularly rich collection of species living together. Sometimes the reserve is home to an endangered species, or is a part of the country with a unique form of ecology, such as a wetland. All types of organisms may be part of a nature reserve. Large animals may be the reason the nature reserve exists, but the choice of that area as a reserve could also be down to a creature as small as a snail or an insect. Plants also make a difference when a government chooses a site to protect from people, especially if they are rare and only native to that country. Even a place that is relatively barren of organisms, but has a particular geology may be made a nature reserve. As the reserve is supposed to be an area that retains its natural beauty and interest, along with its diversity of species, a management structure has to be in place to regulate the reserve. Typically this is a government organization, who enforce the laws of the area and punish people who break those laws. Examples of potential rules include a ban on vehicles, prohibition of open air fires and a restriction on the places where people can walk. Fees may apply to entrants into a reserve, and the government may also approve certain businesses inside the park, such as refreshment kiosks and businesses that predated the creation of the reserve like stores. Readers Also Love - By: ElenathewiseAn area of wetland might be set aside as a nature reserve. - By: magannA waterfall on the island of Tasmania. Nearly half of Tasmania is made up of nature reserves and other protected areas. - By: SmileusGovernmental agencies will preserve lands with exceptional ecosystems. Discuss this Article Post your comments

Thomas R. Burton Announces Retirement; Glenn S. Welch named Chief Executive Officer of Hampden Banco Thomas R. Burton Announces Retirement; Glenn S. Welch named Chief Executive Officer of Hampden Bancorp, Inc. and Hampden Bank SPRINGFIELD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Thomas R. Burton has announced his retirement as Chief Executive Officer of Hampden Bank (the "Bank") and Hampden Bancorp, Inc. (the "Company") (NAS: HBNK) , effective December 31, 2012. The Board of Directors of the Company, which is the holding company for the Bank, has unanimously elected Glenn S. Welch as Chief Executive Officer of the Company and the Bank effective January 1, 2013, succeeding Mr. Burton. As discussed in more detail below, Mr. Welch has served in numerous leadership roles with the Company and the Bank since 2001, most recently as President and Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Burton will continue to serve as a member of the Board of Directors of the Company and the Bank after December 31, 2012. Thomas R. Burton, CPA, CGMA, has served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Company and the Bank and its predecessors since 1994. He also served as the President of the Company and the Bank and its predecessors from 1994 to January 2011. Prior to that, he was a managing partner at KPMG LLP. Mr. Burton has a Bachelor of Science degree from Western New England University. Mr. Burton has been actively involved in professional organizations and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Connecticut and Massachusetts Societies of Certified Public Accountants, where he served as Chairman of the Massachusetts Society Bank Accounting Committee. Mr. Burton is a past member of the Board of Directors and past Chairman of the Affiliated Chamber of Commerce of Greater Springfield, member of the Board of Trustees and past Chairman of Western New England University, Director and Chairman of the Audit Committee of the Bankers' Bank Northeast, Director of the Depositors Insurance Fund of Massachusetts, Director and past Chairman of The Association for Community Living and member of the Board and Treasurer of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Burton has served as a director of the Company since January 2007 and as a director of the Bank since 1994. Mr. Burton's banking experience has and will continue to enhance the breadth of experience of the Board. Glenn S. Welch has served as the President and Chief Operating Officer of the Company and the Bank since January 2012. Prior to that, he served as the Company's Executive Vice President since 2006 and as the Senior Vice President and Division Executive for Business Banking of Hampden Bank since 2001. Prior to joining Hampden, he served as Vice President, Middle Market Group at Fleet Bank. He is a graduate of Western New England University and earned his MBA from the University of Massachusetts. He currently serves as Chairman of the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield (ACCGS), Chair of the Board of the Scibelli Enterprise Center, member of Western New England University Business Advisory Board, board member of DevelopSpringfield, member of the Mass Bankers Credit Committee, and a participant in the City 2 City project. Mr. Welch has also served as a director of the Company and Bank since January 2012. Mr. Welch's extensive banking experience and knowledge of local markets provides strong direction for the Company going forward. About Hampden Bank Since 1852 Hampden Bank has been "brightening the days of its customers. A local community bank serving the families and businesses throughout Hampden County, Hampden Bank has ten branch office locations in Springfield, Agawam, Longmeadow, West Springfield, Wilbraham, at Tower Square in downtown Springfield, Indian Orchard, and its newest location on Boston Road. In addition to offering the most up-to-date banking services, Hampden Bank offers clients a full array of insurance and financial products through its subsidiary, Hampden Financial, a strategic alliance created with MassMutual and Charter Oak Insurance and Financial Services. Special Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements Certain statements herein constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other federal securities laws. effect, Thomas R. Burton Announces Retirement; Glenn S. Welch named Chief Executive Officer of Hampden Bancorp, Inc. and Hampden.

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Maryland (April 20, 2020) – The Army is making sure that Soldiers supporting local and state governments in the fight against COVID-19 are equipped with the latest situational awareness and communication systems. Army network and Soldier system modernization, development and program offices are taking rapid measures to ensure U.S. Army network communications capabilities and support needed to combat the COVID-19 virus are met with the latest commercial software and hardware capability, and a robust help desk support effort. The Army's network and Soldier systems development and acquisition community is actively working with U.S. Northern Command and U.S Army North (ARNORTH), the Army National Guard, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to quickly provide rapid network communications capability, integration expertise and help desk services to augment and enhance current communications systems. Network enhancements will provide personnel in such units as medical, signal and logistics with applications and communications equipment that can lead to a better understanding of regional COVID-19 impacts and assist commanders working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and local governments in their response efforts. In March, the Army’s network modernization community — including Program Executive Officer for Command, Control, Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T), PEO Soldier, Network-Cross Functional Team (N-CFT) and Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) with the Army’s Chief Information Officer/G6 and G3/5/7 — proactively stood up the C5ISR COVID-19 Response Equipping Team. The team is working to deliver capabilities and services that are already part of Army programs. It is also repurposing capability in innovative ways to support COVID-19 mission sets, and is working to rapidly procure new systems if needed. Additionally, the team is ensuring help desk functions are established to troubleshoot tactical network communication issues as they arise in the field. “Situational awareness is critically important in responding to any contingency and this one is no different,” said Maj. Gen. David Bassett, program executive officer for C3T. “This team-of-teams is combining strengths to ensure that both front line and support elements possess the data exchange and common operational picture (COP) they need to successfully collaborate and combat the COVID-19 virus pandemic.” To assist National Guard and ARNORTH with tactical network initialization, integration, system troubleshooting and maintenance issues, within the last week the C5ISR COVID-19 Response Equipping Team has stood up a help desk to provide 24/7 assistance. The collaborative effort between PEO Soldier, PEO C3T and CECOM leverages the existing Mission Command Support Center (MCSC), at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, which primarily assists with network management and troubleshooting of the Army’s Blue Force Tracker capability. The help desk is already serving as a single point of entry for COVID-19 response units to request technical assistance from PEO C3T and CECOM experts. Staff at the MCSC and PEO Soldier are now responding to calls from a variety of units covering all Army tactical network devices and communications systems, whether they are still in the fielding process or have already transitioned to sustainment. Units can initiate trouble ticket response from C5ISR community subject matter experts by submitting a ticket online at. Military, government and non-government agencies, and first responders are leveraging the robust U.S. commercial network infrastructure as the primary means of enabling voice, video and data exchange in ongoing COVID-19 response efforts. Working with ARNORTH and National Guard network managers and planners, the C5ISR COVID-19 Response Equipping Team is identifying alternate, contingency and emergency communication capability, as well as assessing unit and system readiness, should the primary commercial communication infrastructure get overloaded or damaged. The team is also working across the Army’s material community to provide systems as requested by units, such as recently working to identify a source of radios for medial units assisting in New York City..” To ensure communications between military and civilian agencies, the Army is using its existing network gateways, such as Commercial Coalition Equipment (CCE) enclaves and the Global Agile Integrated Transport (GAIT) network design, and ground satellite terminal capabilities, like Regional Hub Nodes, to securely exchange network data between commercial and military networks in support of ARNORTH and ARNG missions. Additionally, in cases where needed, ARNG units are using their Disaster Incident Response Emergency Communications Terminal (DIRECT) tool suite, which includes CCE, to connect to commercial networks. The tool kit also enables ARNG units to provide commercial phone, internet access, Wi-Fi and 4G LTE to military, government and non-governmental first responders if needed. As part of the tool suite, DIRECT is equipped with a voice-bridging capability that interconnects various military and first responder radios, cell phones and internet telephones, to enable a seamless collaboration and synchronization across the entire team. “The Guard is responding in cities and towns across the country to minimize the impact of this deadly disease,” said Col. Lesley Kipling, N-CFT Army National Guard liaison officer. “Its need to interoperate and communicate across federal agencies and with first responders is critical to perform sustainment, logistics and medical functions. The support being offered is essential to enabling our mission, maintaining our readiness and modernizing of our service component.” New applications and communications equipment could also provide ARNORTH and ARNG personnel with applications and communications equipment that can lead to better understanding of regional COVID-19 impacts and enable a common operational picture for commanders and government and local agencies to collaborate more closely. For instance, units can leverage the MCSC to enable interoperability across a wide range of military and civilian devices, and to virtually train supporting units on the latest applications. Most important, the MCSC, in conjunction with Johns Hopkins University, has also constructed a dashboard to display relevant COVID-19 data on a common map, enhancing collaboration among first responders, local and national agencies and Army National Guard personnel. C5ISR COVID-19 Equipping Team efforts will be ongoing as more units are called to support COVID-19 response and seek additional capability to enable enhanced situational awareness, better logistics data and increased connectivity. “I’ve been extremely impressed with the collective efforts of the C5ISR teams that have aggressively and proactively sought to provide needed communications capabilities in support of the Army’s COVID-19 response, said Col. Shane Taylor, project manager for Tactical Network who leads the team’s coordination efforts. “The team stands ready to continue support to those on the front line of fighting this pandemic for the duration.” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINKS: Related Article: Global network design unifies Army modernization efforts PEO C3T website: PEO C3T News PEO C3T Facebook: PEO C3T: Flickr National Guard Social Sharing

Yerevan (Armenpress)–One of Armenia’s leading commercial banks–Armeconombank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) sealed an agreement in Yerevan on December 8 whereby the European bank purchased 25 percent of the Armenian bank’s stock. Speaking after the signing ceremony–a senior EBRD executive said they will pay Armeconombank $1 million and grant it $500,000 in "technical assistance." An EBRD finance director–Maria-Luisa Cicogniani–told a news conference that the agreement was in line with EBRD’s plans to expand investmen’s in the private sector of former Soviet republics. "This is our first investment in Armenia’s banking sector–and if further opportunities arise we will certainly consider them," Cicogniani said. EBRD had made similar investmen’s in one bank in Azerbaijan and two banks in Georgia which conform to Western-style management and transparency. "We are a long-term investor in the bank–and our investmen’s are usually five-year-long and more," she said. Armeconombank–in which the majority of stock belongs to Khachatur Sukiasian–a business tycoon and parliament member–is one of few Armenian banks structured as a public joint-stock company–with 2,000 small shareholders receiving dividends. The head of EBRD Yerevan office–Nikolay Hajinsky said the EBRD will soon buy minority stakes in several Armenian manufacturing companies–but he did not name those firms. The overall EBRD investmen’s in the Armenian economy since 1993 have covered 11 programs totaling $150.

Oct 18, 2021 Activist investor TCI unveils plan to cut costs, boost service at CN Bloomberg News, CN Rail fires back against TCI Fund Management claims The activist investor pushing for change at Canadian National Railway Co. has outlined its plan to improve returns at Canada’s largest railway with a greater focus on efficiency under a new chief executive officer. TCI Fund Management Ltd., which is run by billionaire Chris Hohn, spelled out in a presentation Monday how it believes Canadian National can improve its operations and culture and reduce costs. TCI argues in the 102-page document that it’s imperative for CN to make changes now after its smaller rival, Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd., agreed to acquire Kansas City Southern. “CP will be a much stronger competitor, so CN needs to raise its game urgently to prepare for a tougher competitive environment,” TCI said in the presentation, a copy of which was reviewed by Bloomberg News. TCI, which owns more than 5 per cent of Canadian National, argues that CN’s priority should be to expand the business. The firm said the railway needs to invest in its network and technology to create more capacity, improve fluidity and connect new customers to the railway. The fund also says CN needs to aggressively market itself to customers as an environmentally friendlier alternative to trucks. In its presentation, it again called on CN to appoint its four director nominees to increase the board’s industry expertise. It also urged the board to replace Chief Executive Officer Jean-Jacques Ruest, who has a marketing background, with former Chief Operating Officer Jim Vena, whose career has been focused on railway operations. A representative for CN wasn’t immediately available to comment on the presentation. MARCH SLOWDOWN CN has been locked in a battle with the London-based TCI since August, when the firm raised concerns about the railway’s doomed pursuit of a US$30 billion takeover bid for Kansas City Southern. TCI has argued the takeover would never get approved by regulators and exposed CN to potentially US$2 billion in fees it would have to pay. After TCI announced it would wage a proxy battle, CN unveiled a plan to cut spending, streamline management and buy back CUS$5 billion (about US$4 billion) of stock next year. It has accused TCI of having a conflict of interest because it’s the largest shareholder in Canadian Pacific. A shareholder meeting is scheduled for March 22. Canadian National also said it was paid a US$700 million termination fee after Kansas City Southern opted for the Canadian Pacific deal. It said TCI is misleading investors and argues it has the right management team and plan in place to improve its performance. TCI argues that Canadian National’s board has failed to hold Ruest accountable for its deteriorating operating ratio -- an important measure of a railroad’s efficiency that measures total operating costs as a percentage of revenue. CN went from having the best operating ratio among top-tier railways in 2017, prior to Ruest’s appointment, to the worst today, the fund said. The fund says in the presentation that Canadian National needs to optimize its network and supply chain to improve service, capacity, safety and reliability. after similar measures were implemented at rivals Canadian Pacific and CSX Corp., they yielded rapid results, the fund said. CN management’s plan is focused on short-term 2022 operating ratio targets, headcount reductions and share buybacks, TCI said, adding that the railway needs a longer-term focus to improve efficiency and customer service. In order to achieve that, the company needs change at the top, TCI says. “CN’s cost structure, service and growth can quickly return to the best in the industry,” the presentation says.

Lisa Friedkin’s pioneering husband is no longer with us, but his mission continues On March 12, 1992, Shawn Friedkin’s life changed in a split second. That’s when he was driving his convertible, with the roll bar up, from the small Dade County town of Medley to Miami for business. A truck cut him off, sending Friedkin’s vehicle rolling four times onto a grassy area. The car settled upside down, and Friedkin couldn’t feel his legs. At Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he would spend the next three months, Friedkin learned that the accident crushed his spinal cord. He was 27, and he would never walk again. Friedkin, who died from cancer in March 2021, spent the 29 years after his crippling accident moving forward. Within five years of the accident, he would start Stand Among Friends, an FAU-based nonprofit, initially to raise funds for neurological research and to support those with spinal cord injuries. Over the next two decades, it would evolve into the Disability Center at the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, which supports individuals across a spectrum of disabilities, helping them to find work, offering vocational evaluations, and teaching them how to use the latest assistive technologies. Friedkin advocated on their behalf on Capitol Hill and on public television, all to help fulfill his organization’s mantra: to live a life without limits. “The most important thing to him was people being able to live their lives fuller,” says Lisa Friedkin, Shawn’s wife of more than 33 years. “People would come to the center, and we would work with them. We would reach out to companies, and we would put them together. We would work with individuals doing résumés and mock interviews and finding them employment.” Shawn Friedkin was 56 when he died earlier this year, survived by Lisa; their two daughters, Sydney and Bennett; and his son-in-law Jeff. Because of his drive, his persistence, and his ability to speak up for millions of people that didn’t have a voice in an able-bodied world, his impact continues to be felt. Rep. Ted Deutsch eulogized him on the floor of the House of Representatives, adding, “His positive impact leaves a lasting legacy through the lives of all the people he helped personally. … Our lives are better for having Shawn a part of them.” Lisa met Shawn in 1982, at Syracuse University. She was a sorority sister in her sophomore year; Shawn was a freshman in a fraternity. “We met at a Greek party,” Lisa recalls. “He asked me to dance, and I said no. And he turned to me, and he’s like, ‘you don’t want to break my heart, do you?’ And I’m like, oh my God, how pathetic. But it worked, because I danced, and we had our first date a week later. And we danced the whole rest of our lives.” Lisa describes Shawn as hardworking and resilient; While the tragic event of 1992 caused him to “reinvent himself,” he found ways to remain active. “He rode a hand cycle. He did four marathons. He converted a Harley Davidson to be accessible. He played wheelchair tennis. He had a dune buggy that was hand- controlled. He had a sports car that was converted. He was still able, through an elevated lift, to reach things, and fix the thermostats in the house, and just keep going. He did whatever he could to make it work. …” With the help of a bionic technology called ReWalk, Shawn even experienced the sensation of walking again. “They brought it to the center, and Shawn was able to use it,” Lisa says. “That was five years ago—a lot of tears in Stand Among Friends that day.” Lisa and Dawn Friedkin, Shawn’s sister, now head up Stand Among Friends, and they vow to keep their founder’s mission alive. On Giving Tuesday (Nov. 30), or at any time, consider a tax-deductible donation at standamongfriends.org/donate. This story is from the November/December 2021 issue of Boca magazine. For more content like this, subscribe to the magazine by clicking here.

Peace Train (Hardcover) Description. About the Author Cat Stevens is one of the most influential Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriters of all time. His career spans over six decades, and he is known worldwide for his hits “Peace Train,” “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out,” “Wild World,” “Father and Son,” “The First Cut Is the Deepest,” and many more. In 2003, he was honored with the World Social Award for “humanitarian relief work helping children and victims of war.” The World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates recognized him with the Man of Peace award for his charity work and philanthropy in 2004. In 2020, he launched the Peace Train initiative, which delivers relief, medical aid, and education globally.. Praise For… Unlike many of the songs that have become picture book texts, this one builds up a real head of steam for world peace, and captures the childlike optimism of the original song for a new generation. — School Library Journal (starred review) Climb aboard, with this visual interpretation of the classic 1971 song. — Kirkus Reviews [A] joy-filled journey. — Horn Book Magazine

Brighton radio station starts mother and baby show for new parents Brighton radio station Radio Reverb is to start broadcasting a mother and baby show for new parents from tomorrow (Sunday 9 July). The station said: “A brand new, and unique, monthly radio show is launching on Radio Reverb this week exploring the rollercoaster journey into parenthood. “Home-grown broadcaster and new mum Josie Booth will be sharing her pregnancy thoughts and new motherhood experiences with all new parents out there and will also be featuring fellow new mums telling it like it really is. “Guest experts will be helpfully imparting their wisdom and local Brightonians will be sharing their top tips for things to do with the mini micros – all served with a healthy dollop of musical treats to silence the screaming … parents! “The show which is yet another unique piece of broadcasting from the not-for profit radio station will have its broadcast premiere on Sunday 9 July at 2pm and will be repeated in the mornings throughout the month. “Other ways to listen will be via the Listen Again button at.” Producer and presenter Josie Booth said: “Radio Reverb offers a unique and innovative platform to launch my new show The Mothership. “My baby boy Phoenix is just six weeks old and becoming a new mum is a huge challenge. “I wanted to provide a place in which honest, open experiences could be shared – the good, the bad and the ugly.” Station director and head of content Ali Rezakhani said: “Once again Radio Reverb comes up with a creative solution for a subject which needs discussing much more across the airwaves. “While a joyous time, the challenges of new parenting need voicing and we hope that it will really help those who might actually be struggling. “There is no one better than Josie to do this for us – in her spare time.” Full details of the show can be found at Radio Reverb’s Mothership show page. LIKE WHAT WE DO? HELP US TO DO MORE OF IT BY DONATING HERE. And don't forget to sign up to our email newsletter, bringing you the week's biggest stories every Thursday.

Scientists have discovered phosphine gas on Venus - but does that really mean there’s life in space? The debate as to whether beings exist on planets other than Earth has been around for centuries, but new scientific findings now suggest signs of life on Venus. A team of astronomers, led by Cardiff University’s Professor Jane Greaves, has discovered the presence of phosphine gas in the high clouds of Venus, which suggests that colonies of living microbes could be residing on the planet. What is phosphine gas? Phosphine gas is a molecule made up of one phosphorus atom and three hydrogen atoms. The molecule is also produced on Earth by microbes that live in oxygen-free environments, such as swamps, or with microbes living in the guts of animals like penguins. On Earth, bacteria produce phosphine gas after absorbing phosphate minerals and then adding hydrogen to it. Where was the gas found? The phosphine molecules were first detected by the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), located near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The molecules were found in the clouds high in Venus’ atmosphere, which are made of around 90 per cent sulphuric acid. On Earth, the major use of sulfuric acid is in the production of fertiliser. The surface of Venus is extremely hot, with a mean temperature of around 464C (867F), and therefore too hot to sustain life. However, astronomers have considered that life could survive in more moderate conditions, on clouds high in the planet's atmosphere, which have a cooler temperature of 30C (86F)..” What does the presence of phosphine on Venus mean? The international team of astronomers ran a number of calculations after finding the presence of phosphine, in order to see where it could have come from. Although they note that natural processes couldn't be ruled out, due to the lack of information about how prevalent phosphorus is on Venus, work conducted by Dr William Bains at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) suggests otherwise. The research carried out by Dr Bains looked at the natural ways to produce phosphine, finding that there was no way to produce the amount that was detected in Venus' atmosphere. The discovery of phosphine could also explain the unknown dark streaks which were detected on Venus by the Japanese space agency, JAXA. They could potentially be colonies of these new-found microbes. A version of this article originally appeared on our sister site, The Scotsman.

UK eyes are on the three As: Asia, the Americas and Africa In a recent address to the Council of Foreign Chambers of Commerce in the UK, IOE&IT chairman Terry Scuoler CBE started with a defence of trade as a force for good and its role in lifting people out of poverty. He stressed that he was talking about trade which was mutually beneficial – both free and fair. That vision has been under threat in recent years as many of the world’s trading blocs and nations, but particularly the US and China, have ramped up tensions in their relationships with each other. While some of the rhetoric has been dialled down since the departure from the world stage of US President Donald Trump, many of the factors that led that way, notably the anti-competitive practices sometimes adopted by China, have not receded. Concern for UK service exports Scuoler noted that it was hard to quantify the effects of Brexit because of the simultaneous effects of Covid. He sounded a note of concern that while trade in goods had largely rebounded since the lows of early 2021 trade in services with the EU had not yet done so – a particular worry because of the strength of the UK in services. He was concerned too about the effects of the Northern Ireland Protocol, worrying that it could not continue to be enforced in its current form and hoping that some renegotiation would be possible. Simplified trade rules He highlighted the UK’s ambitions for a better trade environment and the strengths that the country enjoys, such as language and law, as reasons for optimism. He welcomed the government’s plans to increase the density of trade in UK businesses and the introduction, earlier this year, of the Global Tariff which simplified trading rules and removed costs for traders in respect of things like nuisance tariffs.Eyes on the three As He hoped the UK could continue to enjoy strong trading relationships with its closest neighbours and current biggest trading partners. However, Scuoler pointed out that most of the global growth forecast in the decades to come would be in Asia, the Americas and Africa where a growing middle class was driving demand for the high quality goods and services in which the UK specialises. He looked forward to the UK joining CPTPP and negotiating further trade agreements around the world. As he drew to a conclusion, the IOE&IT chairman returned to his earlier theme of mutually beneficial trade – the UK should not see such regions as ‘just’ export markets to be exploited but places to be partnered with.

Gogi Kamushadze Foreign influence laws wreaking havoc on journalists, professors in India and the US Critics say recent rulings in the two countries form part of a crackdown on civil society and the press Laws regulating foreign interference in India and the United States are increasingly being used to threaten press freedom and independent civil society groups, according to experts interviewed by Coda Story. Last week the U.S. Department of Justice ordered an affiliate of Al Jazeera to register as an agent of the Qatari government under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. Today, the Indian parliament passed an amendment to its Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, or FCRA, which added draconian restrictions on the activities of Indian organizations which receive funding abroad. Rights activists and critics see the amendment as a politically motivated attack by the government on dissenting voices. Both developments fit into a wider worldwide pattern: a 2019 Amnesty International report described laws against foreign interference in domestic affairs and laws restricting foreign funding as key tools states have increasingly used in a “global crackdown on civil society organizations” over the last decade. “A political weapon” The Justice Department’s decision requiring AJ+, an online TV channel hosted by the Qatar-owned media network Al Jazeera and backed by the Qatari royal family, to register as a foreign agent sparked an outcry from press freedom advocates. Much of the criticism was based on suspicions that the move was made at the behest of the United Arab Emirates, which has led an economic blockade of Qatar since 2017, and has previously lobbied the U.S. to designate Al Jazeera as a foreign agent. The Justice Department’s letter to Al Jazeera was sent the day before the U.A.E. signed diplomatic normalization accords with Israel in the White House. The timing suggested to many — including Al Jazeera itself and the National Press Club, which condemned the move — that the FARA registration was a condition of the deal, which the U.A.E. has denied. “This seems to have been an extremely political process that borders on using FARA as a political weapon,” said Ben Freeman, director of the Center for International Policy’s Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, in an email. He added, “It’s extremely troubling if the Department of Justice weaponized FARA at the request of a foreign power.” Courtney Radsch, advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists, told me the Justice Department’s decision gives weight to the organization’s prior concerns about governments designating media outlets as foreign agents. Doing so, she said, “can lead to the perception that journalists are spies, and that’s not good for journalists or their safety.” Under FARA, registered foreign agents are required to extensively document and disclose their activities on behalf of those they represent, including meetings they attend. If enforced this could severely compromise journalists’ ability to protect sources’ anonymity. A “death blow” to India’s non-profit sector The new amendments to India’s law regulating foreign funding of domestic organizations represent what some in the country’s already beleaguered non-profit sector have called a “death blow” to their work. Among the many new restrictions is a ban on recipients of foreign donations redistributing money to other Indian organizations. This makes it impossible for grant-giving organizations like Oxfam to fund the work of smaller NGOs which cannot as easily do their own fundraising abroad. The new amendment also forbids public servants from receiving any foreign funding. Since the Indian penal code defines “public servant” to include the faculty of public universities, this could have grave consequences for foreign-funded research. Even before the new amendments, FCRA had been increasingly used to hinder the work of organizations which the government perceived as antagonistic to its policies, including Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and the Ford Foundation. “FCRA was already a troubling piece of legislation that we feared — as it turns out, rightly — could be used to target civil society groups that opposed government policies,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights<<

Crossfit Announces Beta Launch of Affiliate Partner Network, Online Purchasing Hub with Discounts, Sales Opportunities BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — CrossFit, the world’s largest fitness community, today announced the beta launch of the CrossFit… BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Cross. Access to the CrossFit Affiliate Partner Network beta is included at no additional cost to all CrossFit affiliates in good standing as part of the affiliate fee. CrossFit affiliates can access the APN at. Reaction from APN Launch Partners Airrosti: “With over 17 years of experience and more than one million injuries treated, Airrosti has a proven track record of exceptional results for our patients and are honored to have been selected as the rapid recovery partner for CrossFit’s new Affiliate Partner Network. We’re excited to support affiliates with resources and rapid recovery education for owners and their members, while delivering effective and efficient remote care, as well as complimentary virtual assessments and care coordination, to the CrossFit community across the country.” — Mark Metcalfe, CEO, Airrosti Big Ass Fans: “We sold our first fan to a CrossFit gym 13 years ago and we’ve been proudly serving those looking to be the best versions of themselves ever since. Today, we’re excited to offer a wide range of products and customized solutions to transform any gym into a safer space that allows members to work out harder for longer.” — Alex Risen, Public Relations, Big Ass Fans BTWB: “btwb is excited to be a part of the CrossFit APN and to continue supporting CrossFit affiliates in every way we can. Since 2008 we have been building technology for the CrossFit community. Our expertise is in tracking and analyzing fitness journeys in order to provide your members with numbers that show true, tangible progress.” — Moe Naqvi, CEO, BTWB Crossover Symmetry: “CrossFit affiliates are the heart and soul of CrossFit. We love helping affiliates keep their members in the gym and performing at their best. And the CrossFit APN is going to make it easier for affiliates worldwide to get the best deal possible on Crossover Symmetry.” — Duggan Moran, CEO, Crossover Symmetry Daxko: “We are so excited to have all of Daxko’s small-business brands — UpLaunch, SugarWOD, and Zen Planner — included in the CrossFit APN. Our roots are in the CrossFit space, so we are more than happy to provide a special affiliate discount on this powerful end-to-end member journey.” — Ron Lamb, CEO, Daxko FitAid: “As a proud long standing partner of CrossFit, we recognize that the affiliate’s success is paramount to the long term ability of CrossFit to thrive as a sport. We at Fitaid are thrilled to have the opportunity to continue to participate in bringing further value to CrossFit’s family of box owners.” — Aaron Hinde, President and Co-Founder, {FITAID} LIFEAID Beverage Co. GoodEarth Distribution: “The GoodEarth Distribution team is excited to join a host of trusted brands to support the CrossFit affiliate community! We will provide the CrossFit Affiliate Partner Network and affiliate owners with significant savings on cleaning and operational products through our customized ordering platform. This innovative APN will bring substantial value to the CrossFit community and the GoodEarth team looks forward to exceeding expectations!” — Steven Shorr, Vice President of Sales & Operations, GoodEarth Distribution Hydrant: “Hydration is such a crucial part of an athlete’s performance and recovery, which is why Hydrant is so excited to partner with CrossFit on their new Affiliate Partner Network. We’re looking forward to working with CrossFit gym owners across the country to provide their members with products that will help them feel their best and perform at their best.” — John Sherwin, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Hydrant O2: “O2 has a long history of serving CrossFit affiliates, perhaps most notably through organizing community support to help keep doors open during the pandemic. We’re excited to partner with CrossFit’s APN in a way that puts us in an even better position to support affiliates, because we share a strong belief that affiliates are vital to a healthy community, which is more important now than ever.” — Dave Colina, founder and CEO, O2 ProTrainings: “We are excited to be the inaugural CPR/AED training & certification provider on the CrossFit Affiliate Partner Network. This collaboration will maximize the impact for the health and safety of the CrossFit Affiliate community, its coaches, and members. This is a perfect addition to our enduring mission of training and certifying as many individuals in the potential life saving protocols of CPR/AED.” — Scott Andersen, Co-Founder and CTO, ProTrainings PushPress: “PushPress is beyond excited to be part of the APN! As a company that prides itself on being ‘For Affiliate Owners, By Affiliate Owners,’ the APN directly lines up with our mission of providing affiliates with the tools to dominate their day!” — Dan Uyemura, CEO, PushPress Inc. Thorne: “We’re honored and excited to support the CrossFit affiliate community. We recognize that CrossFit affiliate owners have a critical role in improving the health and wellness of their members, and we want to support them as best we can in providing not only the highest quality nutritional supplements and diagnostic tests, but also a system that allows them to elevate the financial health of their affiliate business as well.” — Paul Jacobson, CEO, Thorne HealthTech WHOOP: “The CrossFit affiliate community has been a core part of the WHOOP membership for years and we are excited to continue building our relationship together. This is just one of several initiatives WHOOP will undertake to support athletes at the box level while expanding our partnership with CrossFit.” — Mike Lombardi, Marketing Manager, WHOOP WIT: “At WIT we have always wanted to add value to affiliates. Our business is built from the CrossFit community and Central to that are affiliate owners, whose loyalty to our growth has been fundamental to CrossFit consumers around the world shopping with us. Being affiliate owners ourselves we also understand the challenges of building a community but also how powerful it can be, and this is a fantastic opportunity for us to provide some bespoke pricing and add to a pool of incentives for owners only. We know that all affiliate owners have Whatever It Takes!” — Daniel Williams, CEO, WIT Xero: “Xero is excited to participate in the CrossFit Affiliate Partner Network as a preferred accounting software provider to CrossFit affiliates. By helping affiliate owners get a better grasp on managing business finances from expenses and cash flow, Xero empowers them to feel confident in their affiliate’s success and help them re-focus their time on making a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of their community.” — Tony Ward, President, Americas, Xero 321720@email4pr.com View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE CrossFit LLC

AR Rahman is creating a new 'Harmony' The artist will interview four musicians in a five-episode series in the Amazon Prime show Harmony. - Total Shares We all know AR Rahman as the Oscar-winning composer, occasional singer and lyricist, a sought-after performer and reluctant interviewee and TV show judge. In the Amazon Prime show Harmony (available from August 15) he takes on new roles of host and interviewer. In the five-episode series, Rahman speaks to four artists from across India to get an understanding of their lesser-known musical tradition. They include Mohi Baha’un-din Dagar, a rudra veena player in the dhrupad style, from Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra; Lourembam Bedabati Devi, a vocal practitioner of Khuilang Eshei, a vanishing folk song tradition from Manipur; Kalamandalam Sajith Vijayan, who plays and teaches mizhavu, a drum from Kerala; and Mickma Tshering Lepcha who plays Panthong Palith, a wooden flute from Sikkim. “The concept of the show is what intrigued me to immediately become a part of it,” said Rahman. The man behind the format is popular Chennai-based production house Kavithalayaa’s Kandaswamy Bharathan, credited as Harmony’s producer and creator. Interestingly, it was Kavithalayaa that gave Rahman his big film break with Mani Ratnam’s Roja. Bharathan stated that the company’s research team spent almost a year to identify the sounds that should be showcased on the show. “We were looking for good stories behind the instruments — the making of it, musicians narrating how the tradition is passed on, the history…,” said Bharathan, adding that having Rahman brings credence to the show. “He goes and discovers these sounds and then says they can be used, explored and are relevant,” said Kandaswamy. “He asks why have we not looked at these sounds all these years?” Harmony’s aim is as much to celebrate India’s diversity in music as it is to highlight the challenges the musicians face as they struggle to keep the ancient tradition alive. “They are not sure whether their own kids and the generation after would be interested in taking up music,” said Bharathan. Furthermore, “Because the instruments are not very popular there are few people who are willing to make it”. It creates a scenario in which the artist in some cases is burdened with the additional role of making the instrument apart from performing and teaching Rahman travels to Navi Mumbai, Thrissur in Kerala, Sikkim and Manipur to listen to the stories of the artists in their own words, witness them in their daily environs and even spontaneously jam with them. “It’s not entirely scripted,” said Bharathan, “yet there’s a flow to it. Rahman asks questions; the musicians have the freedom to express themselves. There’s a certain consistency in quality to each episode.” In the final episode, Rahman welcomes the musicians to his studio in Chennai and “uses his learnings and experiences to create (a) musical composition that uses the distinctive qualities of these musical traditions”. Said Rahman, “My aim, through the series, was to recreate sounds from traditional instruments from a contemporary perspective and dangerously improvise.” For Bharathan, the biggest success of Harmony will be that the four musical traditions flourish with its practitioners finding a new audience and more work. (Courtesy of Mail Today) Also read: How pitch for a Bengali Prime Minister may propel Mamata Banerjee to the top chair

A new startup co-founded by industry veterans from security research firm Securosis has landed $2.5 million in seed funding and today officially launched its security-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud management platform. DisruptOps, which offers a service that automates the management and security of cloud infrastructures, is the brainchild of Securosis principals Rich Mogull, Mike Rothman, and Adrian Lane. Jody Brazil, former CEO and co-founder of Firemon, is DisruptOps' CEO, and Brandy Peterson, formerly CTO at FishNet, is CTO of the new company, which spun out of a project built by Securosis. The goal of DisruptOps is to "get a handle on the anarchy" of building, securing, and managing cloud infrastructure, Rothman says. Once organizations begin to add more functions to the cloud, doing so manually becomes onerous, he notes, especially when it comes to security. "When you start enforcing 50 to 60 best practices, it starts to get unwieldy," he said. DisruptOps' launch comes after more than a year of high-profile companies exposing customer- and other data due to configuration errors in their Amazon Web Services S3 storage buckets. Cloud configuration mistakes by Verizon, Deloitte, Dow Jones, and the US Census Bureau, among other organizations, underscore how even large enterprises aren't properly setting up their cloud services, thus leaving their data at risk. The new DisruptOps service provides what the firm calls "guardrails" – "a way to continuously assess and enforce best practices across security operations," Rothman says. Those guardrails are basically automatic enforcement of secure best practices and configuration of the cloud environment, he says. The SaaS-based cloud management platform automates the process of assessing and enforcing security for cloud-based systems and applications. It also automates workflows and integrates with security tools: For example, it can ensure that each Web server in the cloud sits behind a cloud Web application firewall, Rothman notes. One key feature is that the service both detects and resolves cloud configuration and security issues, he says. "A lot of tools tell you what's broken, that something in the cloud is broken," Rothman says. "One of the key aspects of guardrails is that it's not just about continuously assessing when things are violated or go outside" set parameters, he says. It also remediates those issues it finds. Among the initial customers of the new service are a healthcare IT company, a cloud-native analytics firm, and some technology companies. The seed round was led by Rally Ventures, along with Gary Fish, CEO of Fishtech Group, and former Sourcefire CFO Todd Headley. Mobile security vendor Lookout is one of the early adopters of DistruptOps. "We've embraced DevSecOps to ensure both our developers and operational teams integrate security into our applications," said Mike Murray, chief security officer of Chief Security, in a statement. ." DisruptOps is offering a free evaluation of its service. Related Content: - 6 Reasons Why Employees Violate Security Policies - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Security Teams - Google Adds New Identity, Security Tools to Cloud Platform - 12 AppSec Activities Enterprises Can't Afford to Skip Black Hat Europe returns to London Dec 3-6 2018 with hands-on technical Trainings, cutting-edge Briefings, Arsenal open-source tool demonstrations, top-tier security solutions and service providers in the Business Hall. Click for information on the conference and to register.

School hasn’t started yet, but NYC council members are already calling to cancel state tests4 min read Reema Amin, Chalkbeat New York Jul 23, 5:47pm EDT The state math and reading tests for third-to-eighth graders aren’t typically administered until April, but more than a dozen New York City Council members are already asking for Albany’s support in canceling the exams this upcoming school year. Fourteen council members sent a letter this week to state education officials asking them to request a testing waiver from the U.S. Department of Education, which mandates states administer the tests. As New York City schools prepare hybrid in-person/remote learning schedules in the fall that will largely require students to learn from home, council members are concerned about added pressure, especially at a time when learning disparities are expected to be rampant as many families will likely continue to struggle with remote learning, and many communities have been traumatized by the coronavirus and school closures. “Amidst the extreme conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, conducting state tests cannot possibly be fair to students,” the council members wrote Tuesday to Regents Chancellor Betty A. Rosa and Interim Commissioner Shannon Tahoe. “[They] would serve no meaningful purpose, would take time and money away from other more important priorities for learning and healing, and would primarily serve to increase anxiety in a traumatic time.” As school buildings shuttered this spring, the federal government allowed states to cancel upcoming state exams and school accountability requirements. After that, New York’s education leaders almost immediately requested a testing waiver and suspended the exams, as well as other standardized tests and Regents exams. Some states have announced their desire to suspend exams for another year. Leaders in Georgia, Michigan, and South Carolina said they will ask the federal government for a waiver. New York state leaders have not yet said where they stand. A department spokesperson said officials are reviewing the letter and declined to say whether they are considering requesting a waiver. Officials have already posted a testing schedule for next school year — normally done this far in advance to allow schools to plan, a spokesperson said. The city declined to say whether it backed the letter’s position on state tests for next year. Education department spokesperson Danielle Filson said the school system is “laser focused on a safe return” to school buildings and any decisions on assessments are up to the state. Ian Rosenblum, executive director of Education Trust-New York, said that it’s vital for parents and educators to have data on how students are doing. “The state assessments are one important piece of information for parents and educators,” Rosenblum said. “Depriving parents of that information does not make learning gaps go away, it just sweeps them under the rug.” In New York City, the state tests are often a factor for admissions to middle and high schools. About a third of city high schools and a fourth of middle schools screen students using various admissions criteria, including state tests scores. Such screens have become a flashpoint in the fight over how to integrate the city’s largely segregated school system, as criteria like test scores are seen as barriers keeping out many Black and Hispanic students from some of the city’s most elite institutions. Admissions for next year are currently under great debate as the education department rethinks the process, given the upheaval of in-person school and cancellation of the tests in the 2019-20 school year. Education officials also use growth and proficiency scores on state tests as one way to identify struggling schools in New York. The tests have been tweaked in recent years, which made it tricky to make year-to-year score comparisons. Two years of comparable test data won’t be available until at least 2023, making it tough to measure where students stand academically when considering state standards. State officials were set to overhaul next school year’s tests to align with the “Next Generation Learning Standards,” a revised set of academic standards designed to move away from Common Core. But the pandemic pushed those changes to the spring of 2022. Some of the letter’s signatories pushed back on the idea that tests are needed this year to measure student progress. Councilman Mark Treyger, chair of the council’s education committee and a frequent critic of standardized testing, said it’s impossible for teachers to plan curriculum that aligns with testing standards when there are still many unknowns about the fall, such as whether buildings will reopen at all. Councilman Brad Lander, who is also generally unsupportive of standardized testing, said measuring students right now won’t tell families something they don’t already know. “I just don’t know how you can make a straight-faced case this year that the tests can do anything but affirm a failure that is dictated by the pandemic, highlight inequalities without giving us any way to improve them, and then put the stress of all that precisely on the kids, families and teachers enduring that,” Lander said. Read the full letter here. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

SHANGHAI, Oct. 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — CEIBS’ status as a world-class business school was underlined this week as its Global EMBA programme placed second in the Financial Times’ 2021 EMBA ranking once again. This is the second consecutive year CEIBS has been ranked #2 and the fourth consecutive year it has appeared in the top five. The latest release also makes CEIBS’ Global EMBA the top-ranked single-school programme in Asia. The school’s full-time MBA programme was ranked #7 in the world and #1 in Asia by the business media outlet this February. “Over the past 27 years, CEIBS has adhered to a spirit of ‘Conscientiousness, Innovation and Excellence’ to emerge as a leading business school in Asia and the world. This latest ranking cements the school’s place in the top tier of global management education and will serve as an important milestone in our development over the next five years,” CEIBS President Wang Hong says. “Despite the global pandemic, China’s economy has continued to grow, demonstrating its unique resilience and potential. In step with the country’s development, CEIBS will continue to be a bridge connecting China with Europe and the world, and a platform for training top international business leaders.” The FT’s ranking is widely considered to be the most comprehensive and influential of its kind in the world, and is based on surveys of schools and their alumni looking at factors such as career progress, faculty and diversity, research and corporate social responsibility (CSR). “Today’s announcement is testament not only to the strength of our faculty and the Global EMBA programme, but also the on-going support we have received from our students and alumni community. Our achievements as a business school are something that we can all share and celebrate,” CEIBS President (European) Dipak Jain says. “The success and generosity of our students and alumni continue to be a point of pride for the school. As we look ahead to the future, we will do everything to fully empower our alumni and work together to take CEIBS to even greater heights.” The Global EMBA’s strengths are reflected in many of the ranking’s individual metrics. In terms of average salary today, the programme again ranked second worldwide, demonstrating the return-on-investment CEIBS graduates enjoy. The programme’s work experience rank jumped four places, reflecting the depth of industry experience and senior management acumen Global EMBA students bring to the classroom. Meanwhile, our world-class faculty helped CEIBS climb eight spots up the FT research rank, a sign of their growing influence. “As the world increasingly looks to the Chinese market for fresh innovations and business practices, CEIBS faculty are playing a leading role in cutting-edge knowledge creation and dissemination by way of signature research areas, and over 100 China-focused business cases published each year,” CEIBS Vice President and Dean Ding Yuan says. “We also offer our students the opportunity to understand China’s evolving place in global business on a deeper level, directly informed by what is going on here and now. As China continues to shape international business trends, our role will further grow in importance.” The Global EMBA programme boasts a highly international student body, as well as a 40% female ratio (the highest amongst all FT top 30-ranked programmes). It also brings together executives from a broad range of functions, industries and organisations to create an environment suited to those looking to expand their horizons. With a strong focus on developing leadership skills, the programme challenges participants with a range of immersive, experiential exercises, to enable personal and professional transformation. “The uncertainty and volatility of the global economy today requires executives in every industry to be adaptable and open-minded. At the same time, the world needs empathetic, responsible business leaders who have a desire to create a lasting positive impact, not only on their own organisations, but also on broader society,” CEIBS Associate Dean and Global EMBA Director Bala Ramasamy says. “The Global EMBA programme develops global leaders who consistently think beyond the short-term needs of their organisations and instinctively reach for viable, sustainable long-term solutions and strategies.” The Global EMBA programme achieved an overall satisfaction rating of 9.3 (out of 10) in this year’s FT ranking, a firm indication of CEIBS’ commitment to delivering the most engaging, relevant, valuable and enjoyable experience possible to every student. The school will welcome a new Global EMBA cohort on November 6, 2021. With nearly 100 participants enrolled, it will be one of the most diverse, academically proficient and professionally experienced groups in the programme’s history. About CEIBS China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) was co-founded by the Chinese government and European Union (EU) in 1994, with Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the EFMD serving as its executive partners. It has campuses in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Accra in Ghana, and Zurich in Switzerland. As China’s only business school to originate from government-level collaboration, CEIBS is committed to educating responsible leaders versed in ‘China Depth, Global Breadth’ in line with its motto of ‘Conscientiousness, Innovation and Excellence.’ It offers MBA, Finance MBA, EMBA, Global EMBA, Hospitality EMBA, DBA (Switzerland) and Executive Education programmes. More than 80 full-time faculty members from nearly a dozen countries and regions worldwide bring a wealth of experience from teaching, research and business practice. To date, CEIBS has more than 26,000 alumni from over 90 countries around the world, and has provided a broad range of management programmes for more than 200,000 executives. Learn more here. Photo – This Press Release has not been vetted or endorsed by The Eastern Herald’s editorial staff.

CACI International Inc. won a seven-year, $880 million task order expanding its information technology and engineering services for the Army’s personnel and force management efforts. Specifically, the IT company will support Global Force Information Management, a set of standards and protocols the Department of Defense enacted to make it easier for military branches to share data on personnel and equipment across disparate systems for planning purposes. Central to the work will be CACI’s Agile Solution Factory in Ashburn, Virginia — nicknamed “data center alley” — where more information is processed than in London, Paris and Amsterdam combined. There the company aims to develop software more quickly for Army personnel and force management systems. “CACI’s Agile Solution Factory has set the standard for continuous software development on an enterprise scale through its iterative and transparent approach,” Ken Asbury, president and CEO of CACI, said in an announcement. “Under the [Information Technology Enterprise Management Systems Solution] contract, CACI’s ASF will help the Army implement multiple personnel and force management systems, including [the Reserve Component Automation System] and [Force Management System], two of the most efficient large-scale personnel and force management systems in the world.” The task order covers hardware and software design, sustainment and modification, cybersecurity, and military construction services and was made under the General Service Administration’s Alliant 2 contract vehicle. How the government is embracing agile About 90 percent of commercial software development projects used some form of agile in the past decade, but only in the last five years has the method permeated the federal marketplace, Robert Reid, agile solution factory executive program director at CACI, told FedScoop. “Agile is a software approach where you’re developing capabilities incrementally — typically in two- or three- or four-week sprints,” Reid said. “After each one of those sprints, you demo the product to the government … and the stakeholder community can look at the software that’s being built and give you these slight course corrections.” That way a product is typically delivered faster and maps to the customer’s requirements better, he added. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2018 (NDAA) included language driving government projects toward agile and away from legacy methodologies like “waterfall.” Waterfall establishes detailed requirements up front, hands the project off to a company that works for six to nine months, and then comes a demo of a product that is generally not quite what the customer wanted or needed a requirements change along the way, Reid said. In April 2018, the Defense Acquisition University, in conjunction with the NDAA, called for a course on agile that could be taught across DOD and approached CACI about optimizing the approach at an enterprise scale. That same year, the Defense Science Board spent time with CACI before issuing a report on acquiring software that found agile should be a key consideration, and the Department of Homeland Security began its own transition to the method. CACI’s approach to agile pulls a number of best practices from a variety of methodologies, like waterfall, scrum, combine and XP, and focuses on delivering the minimal viable product — what minimally the customer needs to get functionality out of the software. Generally, only 20 percent of a software application’s features are used otherwise, Reid said. The company’s product teams work in three-week sprints within “neighborhoods” at its factory. Each product team supports a suite of applications and stays together throughout the factory’s life cycle, so they mature and become more efficient as a unit. Their productivity, quality and cybersecurity posture are measured regularly. The factory assigns all incoming work a certain number of story points, called its “T-shirt size,” detailing its level of complexity, effort and risk, as well as cost. The larger the project, the larger the T-shirt size, and the more story points there are to measure. Government customers can view CACI’s progress on story points in the company’s portal and know the same day if developers are behind schedule, Reid said. “With our customers, one of the biggest challenges that they have is scaling and taking it to an enterprise level,” Reid said. “And the biggest impediment to scaling is consistency.” Rather than waiting until the end of a release for cyber scans, the factory scans software daily to ensure developers haven’t introduced new security vulnerabilities. Deploying a release starts a 60-day clock where users identify defects — which are mapped back to the user story to see how many story points are associated with the problem — and then release quality is calculated. “This factory becomes predictable,” Reid said.

contractors from value-added tax. - Government initiatives keep the property market aflutter - Everything you need to know about Lapid's zero VAT plan for new home buyers - Home sales decline in first third of the year from record pace in late 2013 The Knesset is expected to approve the legislation by the beginning of August, before it takes its summer recess, enabling the law to take effect September 1. Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s flagship proposal for lowering housing prices is expected to cost the government some 2.4 billion shekels ($690 milion) in lost tax revenues. “The zero-VAT benefit is intended to allow young middle-class couples, who work and serve, to purchase a home in the near term. We will continue to act to lower housing prices,” said Lapid, who has sought to position himself as the standard-bearer of Israel’s middle class. The legislation has had a bumpy ride since it was first proposed by Lapid. Many economists, including the treasury’s chief economist, said it would have the exact opposite effect of its goal and raise home prices by creating extra demand. The terms of the plan, which creates two tiers of exemptions between those who have or have not served in the army or civilian national service, came under fire for effectively discriminating against Haredim and Israeli Arabs. MK Itzik Shmuli (Labor), a member of the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee and chairman of the social housing lobby in the Knesset, said the main problem with the proposed law, despite the improvement in the eligibility criteria, is that it still creates huge expectations among young couples despite the fact that there aren’t enough homes available on the market for them. “The minute people understand this they will get off the fence and the freeze [in the housing market] will turn into a flood and an attack on the real-estate market, which will lead to a rise in prices,” said Shmuli. The law will apply to new homes worth up to 1.6 million shekels for those who have served in the military or civilian national service for at least 12 months. For those who have not served at least one year, whether in military or civilian service, the ceiling for the tax break will be limited to 950,000 shekels, a figure that was raised from 600,000 shekels in the original plan after complaints that the amount was so low as to effectively preclude those who qualify for it. Even with the higher ceiling, the legislation is likely to face a challenge in the High Court of Justice. Families or single parents with at least one child will be eligible for the benefit, or those where one of the couple is at least 35. There are also restrictions on the per-square-meter price of homes eligible for zero VAT, based on calculations to be made by the government assessor for each region of the country. The ministers held a long debate before approving the tax breaks, during which some ministers raised questions about how the law could be implemented quickly and efficiently given its complexity. Nevertheless, five ministers voted in favor, including three from of Lapid’s Yesh Atid party – Lapid himself, Health Minister Yael German and Science and Technology Minister Jacob Perry. Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir and Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel also supported the bill. Two Likud ministers, Limor Livnat and Gideon Sa’ar, left before the vote, while committee chairman, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, abstained, saying she had doubts about the complexity of the law’s terms. Livni said she had supported the bill when the meeting started, but the issues raised during the deliberations that followed prompted her to abstain, though she said she would not act against the law. The treasury said it would provide a form on its website to allow people to asses their eligibility, while remaining anonymous. If they are found to be eligible, they will need to declare that all the information is correct and have a lawyer certify the document. These documents would then be presented to the property tax authorities. At the same time, the contractor must also check to see if the house to be sold meets the criteria, the treasury said.

Global health security has never been more critical to the well-being of the United States and its citizens than it is right now—diseases spread faster than ever before, new pathogens are emerging, and antibiotic resistance is on the rise. The Office of Pandemics and Emerging Threats (PET) within OGA engages with other U.S. government agencies, foreign governments, and multilateral organizations to prevent, detect, and respond to health threats whether natural, accidental, or deliberate in origin. Pandemic Influenza Pandemic influenza—the flu—remains an unpredictable yet constant threat. With today’s ease of trade and travel, novel strains of the flu can quickly develop into pandemics. Having established pandemic preparedness plans and systems in place is a critical part of global health security. Antimicrobial Resistance The Assistant Secretary of Global Affairs is designated by the Secretary for Health and Human Services’ to lead international engagement on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). As part of the effort, OGA and PET work closely with international partners, including the G7, G20, and GHSA to support implementation of the WHO Global Action Plan on AMR. The Assistant Secretary also co-chairs the Transatlantic Taskforce on Antimicrobial Resistance (TATFAR), along with the Director of the European Commission Public Health Directorate. Global Health Security Agenda The Office of Pandemics and Emerging Threats (PET) leads OGA’s engagement in the Global Health Security Agenda by directly working with GHSA member countries, coordinating policy and strategy across the U.S. government, and supporting GHSA implementation.

If ever a building represented the "old schoolhouse" in Perrysburg, it is the one formerly located on the southeast corner of Indiana and Louisiana Avenues called the Louisiana Avenue School. At one time in years past it was only the only public school in town and it was a very handsome building as you can see in the picture. However, it was not our first. The first school, built on the same site in 1849, burned down. It was called the Union School, a frame building constructed at a cost of $1,600. Just twenty years later it had to be enlarged and at that time the wooden walls were bricked over and a third floor added. When it burned down in 1894, the Perrysburg newspaper headlined the disaster "A Smoldering Ruin! The Dear Old School-house!" But in the same news article it pointed out that this was never a suitable building for school, that "its long stairs (to the third floor) have been the cause of the death of many a young lady who might be a healthy, happy woman today" (an apparent exaggeration), and that its bad lighting was the reason a great number of people in town were wearing glasses (perhaps some truth in this?). The newspaper editor seemed to be both sorry and glad it burned down! Classes had to be held in several different places until a new building was completed at a cost of $30,000. It was designed by a Toledo architectural firm and its architectural style is known as Romanesque, which was popular for schools and libraries in America at the time. A typical feature of that style is the building's large square bell tower (or belfry) with the pointed top that rose from a three-sided bay to the left of the main entrance. This tower was 80 feet high and could be seen from all over town. It was also a temptation for naughty students who occasionally climbed up it to hang their graduating class banner. There were just a few hundred school-age youth in the district at the time, so the original 10 rooms in the school were adequate for all grades and classes. The place was heated by coal-fired hot air furnaces, had oil-soaked wooden floors to hold down the dust and for years depended on water from a well located outside about half way to the street. Every room was supplied with a bucket and a dipper for drinking purposes. Some people thought the building was too fancy because it had an auditorium with theater-style seats on the third floor. But it was built that way because there was not any other place in town like it to hold plays and concerts. It was felt, why not create a space for something useful in addition to school activities? The building was used for both grade and high school until 1916 when a two-story addition to the back was built to serve as a high school. In 1930 a new high school was built on the northeast corner of Indiana and Elm Streets. By 1953 Elm (now Toth) Street Elementary School had been built to help house our growing student population, but the old school was still needed, so money was raised to overhaul and modernize it. The by then shaky bell tower was taken down, as was the auditorium, and the flat roof you see today was installed. The "old schoolhouse" was torn down in 2008 after a series of studies concluding it was no longer viable as an educational facility and after several proposals for renovation / re-development fell through. The Old Schoolhouse ca. 1895

The Indiana University School of Medicine, an anchor on the IUPUI campus for decades, will move the bulk of its classrooms and operations into a new $245 million building on the expanded Methodist Hospital campus in 2024. The IU Board of Trustees approved the new site, which is west of Senate Avenue and just south of the IU Neurosciences Research Building and the IU Health Neuroscience Center on 16th Street. The move will take place in conjunction with IU Health’s massive, downtown consolidation of its Methodist and University hospitals onto one campus, the university said Feb. 5. the new $1.6 billion hospital when it opens in 2026. The future use of the two current hospitals is still under evaluation. IU Health said combining operations of the two hospitals will eliminate “costly duplication” of medical services and help provide more accessible, cost-efficient care.. But details of its exact new location were sketchy until this month. The move will uproot much of the medical school’s traditional operations. All classroom instruction for medical students will go to the new campus, as will graduate training programs in the clinical sciences for residents and fellows, spokeswoman Katie Duffey said Monday in an email to IBJ. Some administrative offices also will move to the new campus, but IU has not yet determined if the dean and associate deans will move, Duffey said. Most research labs and related facilities associated with doctoral programs will stay put on the IUPUI campus or on other sites, she said. Construction is planned to begin in 2022, and the medical school is aiming to take occupancy in late fall 2024. IU said the new site for the medical school will provide flexibility and scale to accommodate medical education facilities as well as future research facilities. It is referring to the new campus as an academic health center. “This state-of-the-art facility, a critical part of the academic health center project, will transform how we prepare researchers and health care professionals to face the health challenges that lie ahead,” said Jay Hess, dean of the medical school, in a written statement. The new medical school will be about 350,000 square feet and include classrooms, teaching and research labs, offices, and related support space. IU said it will request $75 million in state funding. The remainder of the $245 million project will be funded by the IU School of Medicine and private grants. Please enable JavaScript to view this content.

On February 20, Next Magazine, a subsidiary of Next Digital, said it would cease publication on February 29. The ATJ found that the decision affected roughly 100 media workers, who were laid off without prior negotiations between the company and the labor union. On June 1, the United Evening News announced it would cease publication from June 2 after 32 years in print. It said the decline of newspaper readership and the financial impact of COVID-19 were among the factors behind its closure. Even though the newspaper promised to keep all the reporters and transfer them to other media outlets in the United Daily News Group, four sports reporters were fired. One later filed a complaint with Taipei’s Department of Labor. On June 22, Taiwan’s Apple Daily announced it would lay off 140 employees, citing a plunge in advertising revenue and an operating loss due to the pandemic. The newspaper said in a statement 65 media workers from the digital content and newspaper departments, as well as 75 employees in the sales and administration departments, would be let go. The number accounted for roughly 13 percent of the total workforce. Apple Daily’s labor union later expressed “regret and confusion” over the company’s decision. “Colleagues have been very cooperative in recent years as the company sought transformation, but they are now asked to bear the consequences of unsuccessful developments,” it said. In addition to layoffs, the pandemic disrupted journalists’ work. In March 2020, eight Taiwanese journalists were placed in 14-day self-isolation and two foreign correspondents were asked to closely monitor their health for two weeks because they had come into contact with a COVID-19 patient. Australian composer Brett Dean traveled to Taipei from February 23 to March 2 for performances, but was diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 5 after returning to Australia. Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center, a special task force that leads the country’s coronavirus response,laterlisted as contacts 10 journalists who had interacted with Dean during press events. The ATJ’s monitoring showed that authorities continued to prevent journalists from covering important or controversial issues, sometimes using violence to do so. From July to October, more than five reporters were blocked by the police and staff members of the Railway Bureau from covering protests against an underground railway project in the southern city of Tainan. In November, journalists were refused entry to a meeting of the Agriculture Council, even though such events are conventionally open to the press. The ATJ also expressed concern over the authorities’ decision to reject the broadcast license renewal application of cable news stationChung T’ien Television (CTiTV) on November 18. The ATJ called on the regulator to provide a full explanation to the press and public as well as the station to ensure employees’ rights. CTiTV was closed down on December 11 after appeals failed. The ATJ commented: “Having layoffs as a way of cutting costs will directly lower journalistic quality, which is by no means how a media organisation can maintain sustainable business.” The IFJ said: “The IFJ is concerned at the layoffs of journalists at a time when they might face more financial precarious situations. We call on media organisations to guarantee fired workers good severance treatment.” The IFJ also urged the Taiwanese authorities to refrain from obstructing journalists reporting on site and to ensure journalists’ safety at all times.

The consequences of President Joe Biden’s badly mishandled Afghanistan withdrawal are old news for the left-wing ruling class. Congressional leaders have moved onto the president’s so-called Build Back Better agenda, where they duke it out over how many billions of taxpayer dollars to spend on “tree equity.” (Is $2.5 billion enough?) Biden jetted off to a climate conference that was so important, he napped through it. And Americans are consumed with inflation, a supply chain crisis, and ridiculously high gas prices. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, where the president chaotically withdrew U.S. troops this summer, 9-year-old Afghan girls are being bought and sold as child brides. This week, CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper” aired a horrific report from Afghanistan involving fathers so desperate, they have “no choice” but to sell their young daughters into marriage. One of the girls, 9-year-old Parwana, is seen on-camera applying mascara and lipstick as a reporter shares her dreams of going to school and becoming a teacher. A few moments later, Parwana is seen being sold to a man who claims he’s 55 years old—although he looks much older—for the equivalent of $2,200. “My father has sold me because we don’t have bread, rice, and flour,” Parwana told CNN. “He has sold me to an old man.” The most heartbreaking scene captures Parwana holding onto her mother as she’s dragged away by her new “husband.” Few other images could evoke such sadness and horror. CNN reported “child marriage is nothing new” in that part of Afghanistan, but experts say cases are increasing as the country is now engulfed in an economic and humanitarian crisis. With aid agencies forced to leave, the international community is caught between a rock and a hard place: How do they deliver help to families in a country controlled by the Taliban, a radical terrorist organization? Considering that the U.S. State Department hasn’t yet figured out how to evacuate the estimated 200-plus U.S. citizens who still remain trapped behind enemy lines, figuring out how to deliver aid doesn’t appear to be a top priority of the Biden administration. Instead, the administration remains laser-focused on other priorities: a climate crisis that could affect the world decades from now, investigating parents who speak up at school board meetings as potential “domestic terrorist” threats, and remaking the American welfare state. Sure, a president can walk and chew gum at the same time, but in the case of Afghanistan, Biden isn’t. Of course, addressing the scale of the catastrophe would require Biden to admit that his Afghanistan withdrawal wasn’t well thought out—or at least acknowledge that it would entail some horrific consequences. The rushed withdrawal emboldened the Taliban at the expense of American and Afghan lives. In addition to fathers selling their young daughters to feed their families, Afghan girls and women lost their most basic rights. Many can no longer go to work, attend school, or even safely leave their homes. America can’t be the world’s police, solving every humanitarian crisis that comes our way. But after the U.S. partnered with the country for 20 years, Biden owes Afghanistan—specifically, its girls and women—more. For all its talk of “gender equity and equality” and the importance of advocating for “the rights of women and girls,” it’s especially shameful that the Biden administration hasn’t issued a peep—much less offered a solution—to the crisis it helped create. Indeed, the Biden administration’s silence has been so appalling that Sens. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wrote a letter to the president this week demanding information about its “plan” in support of Afghan women’s and girls’ rights. Signed by every female U.S. senator, they write, “American disengagement from Afghanistan puts at risk hard-won gains for Afghan women and girls,” adding: You have committed to press the Taliban to uphold the rights of women and girls, and you have stated that America will maintain an enduring partnership with the people of Afghanistan resisting Taliban rule. … We request and look forward to a briefing from the administration on your plan. Unless and until the Biden administration gets serious about addressing the humanitarian crisis it left in its wake, every Afghan girl who gets dragged away by an older man will serve as a stain on this White House and the values it claims to represent. Calling it a “child-marriage crisis” is a sanitized way of phrasing what’s happening to Afghan girls, some as young as 4 years old. But in softening the truth, we do its victims no favors. As a consequence of Biden’s feckless withdrawal, Afghan girls are being sold as sex slaves. Appallingly, along with our nation’s first female vice president, Biden has done nothing but leave the crisis to get worse.

Jewish funerals can't wait for the pandemic to end. But mourners find comfort in virtual communities. Some of the most heartbreaking stories during the coronavirus pandemic have been about families separated from loved ones in their last moments before death. And that's not the end, because social-distancing rules are keeping mourners apart, too. The Jewish community has felt that forced separation acutely. While some Christian funerals have been postponed indefinitely, Jewish tradition calls for the dead to be buried within 24 to 48 hours. According to Jewish law, the bodies are not embalmed; they decompose naturally. Live Updates:The latest on coronavirus in Wisconsin Daily Digest:What you need to know about coronavirus in Wisconsin Share Your Story:We want to talk to doctors, nurses and others affected by coronavirus The result is that "the loss is compounded" by not being able to be comforted in person, said Rabbi Marc Berkson of Congregation Emanu-El B'ne Jeshurun in River Hills. "There’s the temptation that everyone wants to reach out and touch and hug” each other when gathering for small burial services, Berkson said. A consoling hug is the first instinct for many at funerals. But that can’t happen. And it’s been quite difficult, Berkson has found. “This is just so hard. It’s no way somebody should have to mourn,” he said. Jewish funerals are filled with specific customs that have had to be adjusted for the pandemic. In the Milwaukee area, the goal has been to keep in-person gatherings to a minimum, sharing most mourning and prayers over video chat. Recently Berkson, along with more than a dozen other local rabbis, co-signed a memo of guidelines to standardize some of the practices. The leaders want to comply with the state, and they want to give mourners some certainty about what to expect. The guidelines will continue to evolve with the ever-changing situation, Berkson said, but for now, they include: - No more than 10 people can attend a graveside burial. Everyone must wear masks and keep their distance from non-immediate family members. - It’s discouraged for additional mourners to gather in cars to watch the burial from afar. Once a few people step out of their cars, it’s easy for it to turn into a large, in-person gathering, Berkson said. Some Milwaukee-area burials have been livestreamed instead. - Instead of going to someone’s home to sit shiva with a family, mourn together on Zoom; it’s safer. Berkson understands how hard it is to mourn a loved one from afar. But he’s seen his congregation step up in inspiring ways to help those who have lost someone during the lockdown. While traditionally a minyan, or quorum, of 10 people is needed to sit shiva and say prayers in the seven days after a burial, local rabbis have approved groups of 10 that come together on Zoom. Local congregants, Berkson said, have hopped onto calls for those who are short a few people. The experience of being in the midst of a "comforting virtual community," Berkson said, can be surprising. “There’s this absolute desire, urgency, to be there for others, to be of help. And because so many of us feel helpless, this is one way we can do it,” he said. Other congregants have spent time on the phone guiding older members through the steps to join a video conference. Another glimmer of hope for families in mourning: maybe a year from now, at the customary ceremony dedicating the headstone at the cemetery, everyone who wanted to attend the funeral can gather in person. Before then, Jewish leaders will have to face decisions on how to adapt the rest of their traditions to these unprecedented times. Shavuot, or Pentecost, is approaching quickly at the end of May. “Oh, to be able to go back to some kind of normal,” Berkson said. “It’s something I would hope for very, very much.” Contact Sophie Carson at (414) 223-5512 or scarson@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @SCarson_News.

Hospital No. 1. “State-level Medicaid expansion is a major predictor,” said Brock Slabach, executive vice president of the association. “The data show that being located in a Medicaid expansion state decreases the likelihood of closure by 62.3%,” Slabach said. “That could explain the difference between Missouri and Illinois in terms of closures.” The Affordable Care Act included provisions for states to expand eligibility for Medicaid. Thirty-five states, including Illinois, Iowa and Arkansas, expanded Medicaid, while 15, including Missouri and Kansas, did not. Slabach said rural hospitals have a higher percentage of uninsured and underinsured patients than their urban and suburban counterparts, and they feel the effects of cutbacks to Medicaid more. “It should give policymakers a reason to take a look at expansion and understand that it goes beyond perhaps just the politics of the day,” Slabach said. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and the Republican majority leadership in the state Legislature oppose expansion of Medicaid, citing increased cost. State Sen. Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, whose district includes Boonville, has been an outspoken opponent of Medicaid expansion. He did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The group Healthcare for Missouri is leading a petition drive to collect signatures to put Medicaid expansion on the ballot. In Missouri, the Department of Social Services oversees Medicaid. The department did not respond to a request to comment on the rural hospital association’s assertion that the lack of Medicaid expansion was in part responsible for the closure of Missouri’s rural hospitals. The department instead sent a statement regarding the possibility of a ballot initiative on the subject. “The Department of Social Services does not have any comment on the ballot initiative. The Department, as other state agencies, will be responsible for providing a fiscal estimate on the ballot initiative if it is accepted by the Secretary of State,” Rebecca Woelfel, communications director of the department of Social Services, wrote in a statement. Follow Jonathan on Twitter: @JonathanAhl Send questions and comments about this story to feedback@stlpublicradio.org

“RS,” the Polish Catholic patient in the center of a United Kingdom court battle to save his life, has died, despite efforts to bring him back to Poland to receive treatment. After suffering cardiact arrest, RS was admitted to the hospital, where he was in a coma. The University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust petitioned to be able to remove life-sustaining treatment — meaning nutrition and hydration — in November. The family of RS repeatedly petitioned to allow him to live, and to be transferred to Poland if the NHS chose not to continue treatment, with Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zbigniew Rau, writing to ask that treatment be reinstated. In January, consultant neurologist and Catholic priest, Rev. Dr. Patrick Pullicino told the court that RS has a 50% chance of making a full recovery, and said that his condition has improved. Yet the court ruled that Pullicino was not a “reliable witness,” and discounted his testimony. They also refused requests from the Polish government to repatriate RS, saying he might die in transit. A Polish court had already ruled in RS’s favor, approving the transfer in what was deemed an effort to ensure his human and civil rights were protected. “A person should always be given a chance,” Deputy Health Minister Waldemar Kraska said. “It is not we who decide when a man dies.” READ: Polish government insists citizen hospitalized in UK must not be starved to death Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Warchoł also contacted the UK’s justice and health ministries, saying that the Polish government won’t abandon its citizens, even if they are in foreign countries. “I believe that in our tradition there is the protection of life from conception to natural death,” he said. Krystyna Pawłowicz, a Polish judge, accused the hospital keeping RS of merely wanting to harvest his organs, and after his death, tweeted, “There should be consequences for the drastic, ostentatious DISREGARD of Poland by Great Britain in such an important matter.” Though doctors admitted that RS could live for another five years, they also argued his life would not be “meaningful,” and therefore, it was in his best interest to slowly dehydrate and starve him to death. A statement from Christian Concern, a United Kingdom-based non-profit organization, said RS had been without nutrition or hydration since January 13th. “I am devastated that the British authorities have decided to dehydrate my son to death,” RS’s mother said in the statement. “What the British authorities have done to my son is euthanasia by the back door. Depriving him of nutrition and hydration is functionally the same as giving him an injection to end his life, except that the entire process is longer, degrading and inhumane treatment.” “Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary!

Byju’s looks to raise $500 million debt The edtech unicorn will primarily use the funds for acquisitions, one of the three people said, requesting anonymity, adding that a part of the money raised will also be deployed as working capital The edtech unicorn will primarily use the funds for acquisitions, one of the three people said, requesting anonymity, adding that a part of the money raised will also be deployed as working capital Byju’s has hired investment banks to raise a minimum of $500 million through Term Loan B (TLB) borrowings in the US as India’s most valuable startup looks to refill its war chest with some debt after spending billions of dollars on acquisitions this year, three people aware of the development said. The edtech unicorn will primarily use the funds for acquisitions, one of the three people said, requesting anonymity, adding that a part of the money raised will also be deployed as working capital. Institutional investors such as hedge funds, which seek higher yields and can tolerate longer investment horizons than traditional banks, offer such loans, which are similar in characteristic to high-yield bonds. TLBs typically have a floating interest rate, with tenures of 5-7 years. A large part of the principal and accrued interest are to be paid on maturity, making such loans attractive for young, fast-growing companies with high cash burns and weak cash flows to support quarterly interest payments as required in bank borrowings. In July, Oyo raised $660 million to refinance existing debt, becoming the first Indian tech company to tap the TLB market. “Byju’s is working with American investment banks JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley to structure the TLB financing. They are looking to raise at least $500 million, but the deal could be upsized depending on the demand," the first person said. Emails sent to Byju’s, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley did not elicit a response. “US investors are warming up to Indian tech companies, and the TLB market is expected to see some more deals. As the Indian tech ecosystem has seen a dynamic shift following the pandemic and dozens of unicorns getting created, Indian tech companies have achieved significant scale to make them attractive for these institutional investors," said the second person, also requesting anonymity. “Given the low interest rate environment in the West and the massive amounts of liquidity with investors, there is a strong need to look for avenues of higher yield and the marquee Indian tech companies are a good fit for these investors," he added. Byju’s has been on an acquisition spree in the past few months, buying higher education platform Great Learning for $600 million, kids’ digital reading platform Epic for $500 million, and test preparation provider Aakash Educational Services for $1 billion, in quick succession. In September, Byju’s acquired online test preparation platform Gradeup, marking its eighth acquisition in 2021, spending more than $2.2 billion in such purchases year to date. Earlier this month, Byju’s raised around ₹2,200 crore in a funding round led by Oxshott Venture Fund, The Economic Times reported, citing regulatory filings sourced through business intelligence platform Tofler. This funding is part of a larger ongoing fundraise wherein the company is looking to raise as much as $1-1.5 billion, which Mint first reported in August. As of September, Byju’s had over 100 million registered students and 6.5 million paid subscribers. Think and Learn Pvt. Ltd, which runs Byju’s, reported a jump in total income to ₹2,380 crore in the year ended March 2020 from ₹1,305 crore in the previous year. However, losses widened to ₹262 crore from ₹8.82 crore in the previous year.

It’s no secret that the United States is the most decorated country when it comes to winning medals at the Summer Olympics, with the red, white and blue taking home more than 2,600 medals, the most of any country. But believe it or not, there are some events the United States has never even medaled in at the Summer Olympics, despite the long history of the Games and the U.S. participation. That has not changed with the Tokyo Olympics. Here are five events the United States is still looking to medal for the first time in. 1. Badminton A popular outdoor game for summer or graduation parties, this actually is an Olympic sport. Since becoming a part of the Summer Olympics in 1992, China has dominated the competition, winning 47 of the 121 medals handed out. Indonesia is next with 21 medals. It might be a relatively new sport, but why can’t the U.S. be good at this? If the popular backyard game of cornhole can have its own professional leagues, why can’t a U.S. prodigy in badminton step up and journey to an Olympic medal? 2. Handball On the surface, this seems like a neat sport that would catch on in the United States. Essentially, it’s a cross between basketball and soccer. Seven players on each team dribble and pass the ball around with the intent of throwing the ball into the goal. But it’s something that hasn’t gained popularity in the U.S., which didn’t qualify a team for the Tokyo games. The last time the U.S. qualified for handball at the Olympics was in 1996. The best finish for the Americans was sixth in 1936. 3. Rhythmic gymnastics Given the popularity of gymnastics, dance, and cheer in the United States, it’s somewhat surprising there hasn’t been an American medalist since the sport was introduced at the Olympics in 1984. No American has ever finished higher than 11th at an Olympics. Rhythmic gymnastics is where competitors perform routines with an apparatus such as a hoop, ball, ribbon, rope or clubs. Eastern European nations have dominated this event, but it seems like only a matter of time before a young American sweeps the nation off its feet in this event, making history. 4. Table tennis If only America had its real-life version of “Forrest Gump” to be a worldwide phenomenon in this sport. As it is, American success in this event at the Olympics seems like a fantasy, just like the movie. Only 12 nations have won medals in table tennis since it was introduced at the Seoul 1988 Games, with China winning more than half the total medals. 5. Trampoline This seems like another sport where it’s only a matter of time before there is an American breakthrough on the medal stand. While China and Russia have dominated the sport since it officially became a part of the Olympics in 2000, who around the U.S. doesn’t love jumping on trampolines? Have you seen all those halftime exhibitions at sporting events of people doing high-flying trampoline acts? Eventually, the popularity of trampolines should translate into Olympic success for the U.S. at some point, even though it didn’t in Tokyo.

The U.S. Energy Department says heating costs are likely to be less this winter, thanks to relatively mild temperatures and a drop in oil prices. The bad news in the forecast is the slight uptick in natural gas prices, which have gone up on average about 6 percent, the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration says. But thanks to milder temperatures anticipated for this winter, officials still predict less consumption of heating fuels and a drop in overall costs for households. Last year’s severe weather and unusually cold temperatures are still having an impact, though. They are the cause of the higher natural gas prices, says Steve Piper, a natural gas analyst with SNL Financial. “With the widespread cold weather, we drew down storage levels of natural gas to extremely low, critical levels,” Piper says. While storage levels have recovered, they are still about 10.5 percent below the five-year average. The slight shortage has raised prices and is likely to continue to do so, Piper says. “The gas utilities are going to be in the market actively procuring gas, to prevent a repeat of last winter’s events. And that’s going to bid up the price somewhat,” he says. But even though more than half of the nation’s homes depend on natural gas for heat, officials still forecast less total spending on heat, because of the milder temperatures. “We expect a relatively mild start to the winter, especially November and into December,” says Dan Leonard, a senior meteorologist with weather forecaster WSI, which operates The Weather Channel. Leonard says while temperatures will get frostier in February, the expected mild start to winter will reduce the amount of heating needed. But the savings for households will not be uniform. The EIA says households using natural gas — which already spend the least on winter heating — will save an average of $31 this winter. That affects more than half the households in almost every region of the country except the South. Homes using electricity, which is a majority of homes in the South, will save an average of $17. The small proportion of homes using propane, many of which are in the Midwest, will save an average of $652. And heating oil households, almost all of which are in the Northeast and account for more than a quarter of homes in that region, will save an average of $362. Meanwhile, the National Weather Service is preparing an updated forecast for winter, which the EIA cautioned could affect its forecast of heating.

Description Description: 49th Battalion (The Stanley Regiment) – Oxidised Collar Badge Pair (Voided) – 1930 to 1942 Maker’s Name: N/A Condition: Very Good Comments: 49th Battalion (The Stanley Regiment) – Oxidised Collar Badge Pair (Voided) – 1930 to 1942 A scarce set of oxidised collar badges only worn from 1940 to 1942. Guaranteed to be 100% genuine. in which the original AIF units were raised. Queensland’s 49th Infantry Battalion was the Stanley Regiment. The 49th was raised in 1921, with its headquarters and a company in Kelvin Grove and companies in Toowong, Ipswich, and Ipswich-Lowood. It held its annual camp in the Redbank Plains area, west of Brisbane. In 1930 the 49th merged with the 25th Infantry Battalion to form the 25/49th Infantry Battalion. When the 25/49th separated in 1934 the 49th joined the 9th Infantry Battalion to form the 9/49th Infantry Battalion. In February 1940 the 9/49th went into camp at Redbank and received its first quota of recruits called up for compulsorily national service. The 9/49th later moved to Chermside, a northern suburb of Brisbane, joining the 7th Brigade. In September 1940 the brigade became full-time and, after it was brought up to strength, separated from the 9th and remained with the 7th. A new 49th was raised for tropical service in February 1941. The following month the battalion sailed to the islands as part of the convoy that took the 2/22nd Infantry Battalion to Rabual. Along the way the convoy stopped at Thursday Island and a group from the battalion, mainly from A Company, stayed to garrison the island. This group was initially called the 49th Battalion Details and in January 1942 became known as the Thursday Island Infantry Detachment. The rest of the battalion arrived in Port Moresby. The battalion undertook little training in Moresby and mainly provided labour for working parties and unloaded ships stores. In 1941 the 39th and 53rd Battalions joined the 49th, forming the 30th Brigade. During this time the 49th’s morale was low and had reportedly the worst discipline in Moresby. Japan entered the war at the end of the year and by the start of 1942 was rapidly advancing through south-east Asia and the Pacific. By March Japanese aircraft were attacking Moresby. The garrison at Moresby was strengthened to cope with the battles along the Kokoda Trail and at Milne Bay, yet there was little change to the 49th’s routine and their training remained basic. One veteran described the work as digging holes. In September the 49th provided troops from the short-lived Honner Force, which patrolled the Goldie River to prevent the Japanese from cutting the Kokoda Trail between Ioribaiwa and Efogi. The remaining 49th provided support by patrolling the area around the Goldie-Laloki Rivers. By November morale within the battalion had improved with more combat experience and jungle training. 49th and the 55/53rd Infantry Battalion went in action at Sanananda. The 49th moved into position along the Sanananda Road on 6 December. Supported by the 55/53rd Infantry Battalion, its four companies, each about 100-men strong, attacked the next morning. Fortified and camouflaged, the Japanese fiercely resisted. One veteran, who also served with the 2/22nd in Rabaul and the 2/4th Infantry Battalion at Aitape, said he never saw a greater volume of fire than what was directed at the 49th on 7 December. The attack failed and cost the 49th dearly. In five hours the battalion lost 14 officers and 215 men killed or wounded. Close to sixty per cent of the attacking force, just under half of the battalion’s full strength, were casualties. The 49th A Company lost nine men; B Company, 38; C Company, 11; and D Company, 60. Forced to continue fighting it lost a further 28 casualties in another unsuccessful attack on 19 December. The battalion was finally relived in January 1943 and flown back to Moresby. Some members had been in Papua for nearly two years and many were not only exhausted but suffering from disease. Rest, recovery, and eventual further training were needed and the battalion returned to Australia in March, camping at Wondecla on the Atherton Tablelands. In April the 49th participated in the 30th Brigade parade, with the 3/22nd and 39th Battalions. In May the 49th’s Militia personnel were posted to the 12th Brigade, where most went to the 36th Infantry Battalion. The 49th was reduced to just 20 officers and 146 men. Shortly afterwards they received news that the 30th Brigade was to be absorbed into the 16th Brigade. Virtually all of the remaining 49th personnel merged with the 2/1st and on 3 July the 49th was disbanded.

IMMOKALEE, Fla. — Florida watermelon growers, the most productive in the nation, face two new viruses. But finding a disease is the first step to managing it, says a University of Florida scientist who helped pinpoint the diseases. From 2017-2020, Florida was the No. 1 state in watermelon production, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture – National Agricultural Statistics Service. In fact, in 2020, Florida produced more than 850 million pounds of watermelon. That high yield makes it crucial for growers to stay abreast of new diseases. That way, they can better protect their crop. UF/IFAS plant pathology professor Pamela Roberts helped find the new viruses afflicting this member of the gourd family, or a cucurbit. Now that they’re aware of the viruses, growers can find ways to deal with the diseases. “Now that it is known that there are additional (watermelon) viruses in the mix, efforts can be made to determine their impacts and how to manage them,” Roberts said. “The viruses very likely occur in mixed infections, with the other viruses already present in Florida and other watermelon-producing states.” In the new paper, Roberts, a faculty member at the Southwest Florida Research and Education Center, writes that she and her research colleagues found watermelon crinkle leaf-associated virus 1 and 2 in Charlotte, DeSoto, Glades, Osceola and Seminole counties. “There is always concern when there is a new pathogen detected and the potential implications it can have on the crop,” Roberts said. “Unfortunately, so little is known about these viruses that we cannot predict anything about them.” “We do have evidence that it has been in watermelon for the last two seasons, and we found it because it looked like other virus symptoms,” she said. “But not any of the other viruses were found associated with the viral-like symptoms. So, if it were going to be highly impactful, we might have noticed something different in the field. This also gives an answer as to why we were not detecting the known viruses in obviously symptomatic plants.” Roberts first learned of the potential of the new virus coming to Florida after hearing a report about it from Texas. She started talking to a plant pathologist at Texas A&M University, and he sent photos. That’s when she decided to test watermelons in Florida for the virus. For now, until more information is available regarding these viruses — including their vector — UF/IFAS researchers recommend growers continue using their current programs to control insects in their crop. Growers who suspect they might have watermelon crinkle leaf-associate virus 1 and 2 can bring leaf samples to the plant diagnostic lab at the Southwest Florida REC and to the lab at the North Florida Research and Education Center in Quincy. –Brad Buck, UF/IFAS

Namibians want out of Chinese abattoir marriage A string of broken promises has soured relations between the two parties, leading to 40 job losses. 19 October 2021 | Local News OSHAKATI A Namibian firm that was granted a 25-year contract to operate the Eloolo Abattoir at Oshakati wants to terminate its joint venture agreement with Chinese firm Ningbo Agriculture Investment Group, citing broken promises and trade shortcomings. Kiat Investment Holdings last year partnered with the Chinese-owned company to run the country’s second biggest abattoir jointly for a decade. But less than a year into business, the facility has closed shop. When Namibian Sun visited the abattoir last week, no activities were taking place, with the only movement that of security guards watching over the property. The rift between Kiat and Ningbo has since led to the abattoir’s second closure in five years, leaving over 40 workers jobless and hundreds of cattle farmers without an avenue to formally market their livestock. The Namibian partner has already started engaging other potential partners. “This is not the end of the abattoir because [we] are at an advanced stage engaging new partners,” Sikunawa Negumbo, a director in Kiat revealed. One of the objectives of the abattoir was also to facilitate the export of northern Namibian cattle and mutton to China. Tick tock Namibian Sun understands the joint venture has struggled to raise sufficient capital to operate the facility. There are also talks that the Chinese partners are struggling to obtain an import permit to get the Namibian meat products into China. Negumbo confirmed this. “We are giving Ningbo a week notice to give us a budget estimate to run the abattoir and we are not taking anything less than N$60 million. They are not serious. To run an abattoir is cost-intensive,” he said. Negumbo said the abattoir has run into trouble with the Oshakati town council due to unpaid municipal bills. He added that the company knocked on the doors of Agribank and the Development Bank of Namibia, but failed to secure funding. Empty promises The Chinese partners allegedly promised to pump N$200 million into the project, but these funds did not materialise. "They keep making promises, but nothing concrete happens. “They said they will pay and we cannot wait for them to get an import permit because that will obviously take [a] long [time] and business needs to continue, otherwise we will also lose the abattoir and we cannot allow that to happen,” Negumbo said. According to him, Ningbo bemoaned the prices of meat in Namibia and Africa as they feel it is “too cheap and doesn’t allow for maximum profits”. The abattoir’s plan manager, Deon Visser, declined to comment when approached. Sleepless nights Eloolo’s closure is said to be giving Oshana political leadership sleepless nights. Governor Elia Irimari told Namibian Sun that he will engage the partners to assess how the situation can be reversed. “We cannot allow the abattoir to close as it has been a great relief to farmers in the northern communal areas [NCA] who could not formally market their cattle since 2016 due to the closure of the place,” he said. He added the upliftment of livestock farmers in the NCA is dependent on the participation of farmers in the formal/mainstream economy. The closure of the abattoir will “increase unemployment in the country”, he said, adding that it was “giving hope and opportunity for farmers to make a living off their farming”. “This was also reducing the burden on the regional offices as people were becoming self-sufficient,” Irimari stressed. His meeting with the Chinese and Namibian partners is scheduled for this Thursday.

The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) together with the University of the Free State (UFS) hosted a webinar on “The Politics of Othering and Discrimination” last month. The webinar was presented by 5 speakers who presented various papers on race, xenophobia, gender-based violence, antisemitism and other critical global issues and their backgrounds and the effect in South Africa. The moderator of the webinar was Vuyolwethu Xulu from the University of the Witwatersrand. He is also a Research fellow at ISGAP. The webinar happened to take place just after the George Floyd trial was concluded as police officer, Derek Chauvin, was found guilty of murder. The death of Floyd sparked outrage around the globe which gave new energy to movements such as #BlackLivesMatter. Making others the enemy as a form of identity A senior lecturer from UFS’s Department of Political Studies and Governance, Dr Bianca Naude, presented a paper entitled “An Unbearable Likeness of Being: Ontological Insecurity and the Creation of Enemy Others.” “We tend to think of identity in terms of likeness or sameness, what we are like or who we are like. Likeness or sameness also draws borders or boundaries that exclude certain things. By defining ourselves in terms of what we are like, we are also identifying ourselves against those things,” said Dr Naude. Dr Naude further contended “Otherness is an essential ingredient of identity. Identity makes it possible for us to exist in the first instance. There is a need for people to be different in order to define themselves,” added Dr Naude. Dr Naude also said that most conflicts or aggression in society are exacerbated by the existence of non-likeness. She argues that it is unlikely for groups of individuals to engage in violence when they see each other as human beings. She made reference to the Rwandan genocide carried out by Hutu extremists, which claimed more than 800 000 lives in 1994, the massacre of countless people under the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa, and 11 million people who died during the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. Gender and identity and gender-based violence Wits University’s Professor Margot Rubin from the School of Architecture and Planning presented a topic on “Thinking Through Othering: Gender and Identity”. Professor Rubin emphasized that women manage crises much better than men, she gave an example of how women leaders handled the coronavirus crisis. “Germany, Taiwan, New Zealand, Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Denmark are led by women and remain to be the countries with the best coronavirus response compared to countries led by men like the USA, Russia or South Africa,” said Professor Rubin. She argued that women were more decisive, honest and had adopted the use of technology to fight coronavirus in countries where they are leading. The best example is that of Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who held a press conference where only kids were allowed, and she answered every question from the kids. Women’s leadership style tends to be more collaborative and empathetic. Professor Rubin concluded her talk by saying “Men in South Africa have lost their position of being providers and this has led to crises of gender-based violence, rape, and domestic abuse,” added Professor Rubin. She was referring to skyrocketing levels of gender-based violence in South Africa which takes different forms from rape to femicide, domestic violence to sexual harassment, and many others. President Cyril Ramaphosa last year declared gender-based violence as a second pandemic after coronavirus. There have been calls from every corner of the society condemning acts of violence against women and children but it seems the call is falling on deaf ears. Xenophobia UFS’s Head of the Department of Political Studies and Governance, Dr Hussein Solomon, presented a detailed paper on “Exploring Xenophobia in the Rainbow Nation”. Contrary to popular belief, the first recorded incident of xenophobic attack in South Africa took place in 1982 at Gazankulu, this is according to Dr Solomon. The most reported incident of xenophobic attacks in South Africa happened in 2008 during Thabo Mbeki’s presidency where a couple of people lost their lives while the majority of people were displaced. This came after South Africans took to the streets a call to foreign nationals to leave the country as they claimed that most jobs were reserved for them as a result of cheap labour. According to Dr Solomon, a Human Science Research Council (HSRC) survey suggests that many South Africans are in favour of more restrictive laws against foreign nationals. It further suggests that only 20% of South Africans are open to immigration. “While xenophobia is a global phenomenon, it takes a different form in South Africa. It is difficult to understand as the economy of South Africa was built on the back of migrants. Moreover, Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries not only gave refuge to the freedom fighters (ANC and PAC), but were also subjected to attacks from the then apartheid South Africa,” said Dr Solomon. He added “Research conducted on migrant entrepreneurs in Gauteng demonstrated that small, medium and micro enterprises and hawking operations create an average of 3 jobs per business, which directly challenges the view that immigrants, particularly street traders, reduce the number of jobs for South Africans.” Over 500 people have been killed since 2008, foreign nationals become easy targets especially by politicians. Former Health Gauteng MEC Qedani Mahlangu and Minister Aaron Motsoaledi blamed foreign nationals for the distressed system of health both in Gauteng and around the country. Responding to the remarks by ANC government officials blaming plummeting service delivery on foreign nationals, Savo Heleta of the Nelson Mandela University noted “Why would politicians choose to face the rightful anger of millions of poor and hopeless South Africans, when they can revert to anti-migrant rhetoric and shift the blame to those who have no voice?” Dr Solomon, in his closing remarks, said “xenophobia goes rampant where poverty exists. The shrinking South African economy makes it possible to witness more xenophobic attacks in the future,” Dr Solomon added. “Race Discourse: The Academic and Public Divide” Independent African analysts and podcaster, Mightie Jamie presented a paper on racial discourse. He chose this topic as he had noticed that there was a divide between discourse within academic circles and discourse on social media and within personal interactions, around issues of race and racism. Jamie said that this discussion was happening just as the Derek Chauvin verdict had been delivered, and that the context is that there is anxiety and has been a lot of polarization on the discussion of race. “There are two scenarios wherein we are having a divide in the discourse on race. Scenario number one is the discrediting of legitimate academic discourse on race happening in public forums. Scenario number two is the discrediting of legitimate public voices on racial discourse in academic circles,” Jamie added. He spoke about the importance of critical race theory that he contended that was undermined by prominent figures who are doing a pedestrian engagement with the content, rather than a thoroughly academic approach like scholars who contributed to the body of work. Antisemitism and the Reactionary Historic Revision of Apartheid and the People’s Struggle Dr Charles Asher Small became an activist in the 1980s after learning that South Africa was still an apartheid state. He took a decision to be part of the freedom struggle, and became the chairperson of the ANC solidarity committee of Canada, and managed to visit South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. Dr Small is the director of ISGAP and research scholar at St Antony’s College. “I couldn’t believe it, that in my lifetime, a regime that was based on racism that was reminiscent of the Nazi era that still existed in my time shocked me” said Dr Small of the moment he found out in a lecture that the apartheid regime in South Africa was still firmly entrenched. He continued “I grew up in Montreal in a Jewish community that had a disproportionate amount of Holocaust survivors. My grandparents and their generation were fortunate enough to come to Canada as refugees and many of our extended family were murdered and certainly displaced in the Holocaust. And I grew up in a community that believed ‘Never Again’, and I was the first generation of young Jewish students that were able to have access to universities and to a future through study if we worked, which my grandparents and even my parents did not enjoy.” He described how this experience led him down the path of becoming very active in the anti-apartheid movement and how honoured he felt to be a part of this discussion, in a free South Africa. He added that at the same time, however, his colleagues, comrades and the notion of apartheid in 2021, have been hijacked by people who are demonising the Jewish people, demonising the State of Israel and demonising Zionism and are at the forefront of contemporary antisemitism. “Antisemitism, in the words of Professor Robert Wistrich and others, is a form of hatred which is inherently genocidal” explained Dr Small, “As colonialists left Europe to conquer parts of the world, and to classify people according to racist / sub-human categories, antisemitism was at the forefront. The foundations of racism and colonialism came out of the European experience and came out of its perspective and view of ‘the Jew’… and of ‘the Other’.” Dr Small stated that in his view, the quintessential ‘Other’ in European civilization, is ‘the Jew’. Antisemitism in three-phases: religion, race, and the demonisation of who Jews are as people He breaks down antisemitism into three-phases: religion, later race, and now the demonisation of who Jews are as people. When it came to religion, the Jews were ‘the Other’. They were seen as the stubborn ‘Other’ that did not accept the Christian notion of the Messiah, and still held onto their culture and heritage and their world view. Dr Small further stated that what made this antisemitism genocidal is that the notion was not only a problem as far as the individual goes, but Jews were essentially seen as holding up the redemption of the world. Later, when the world view shifted from religion to notions of biology, race, science and eugenics, Dr Small said that the Jewish nation was considered a poisoning race, a dirty race, one that was poisoning the purity of a white Aryan nation and race. Unlike the religious form of antisemitism, where Jews had the option to convert and “be saved”, race is something that is inherent and cannot be changed. And so it was that racist antisemitism was a notion that Jews had to be exterminated. Jews where them either exiled or destroyed. Dr Small noted that in apartheid South Africa, both these forms of antisemitism existed. “But,” added Dr Small, “to demonise the Jewish people, to demonise the re-establishment, not the establishment, but the re-establishment, of the Jewish homeland of Israel, that this form of demonisation and antisemitism is not only tolerated, but I would say in liberal, progressive circles it’s actually encouraged.” Dr Small added that the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement, which is at the forefront of progressive struggles against perceived fascism, call for the elimination of the State of Israel, and that this is the contemporary, dominant form of antisemitism – advocating for the dismantling and elimination of the Jewish State. He noted that the Black Lives Matter movement has used the BDS movement by presenting the Jewish nation as white elitists, even going as far as to spread the notion that Jews were training American cops to shoot and kill young African-Americans, further dehumanizing Jewish people and the State of Israel. Dr Small described how the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood and how the Iranian Revolutionary Regime literally take European antisemitism and fascism, using the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – which is the foundation of 19th and 20th century antisemitism and speaks of a cabal, a Jewish conspiracy to control the world. He said “If you look at the writings of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas Charter, they literally lift, plagiarise, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and this plays a critical role in the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood – this old, European, genocidal antisemitism, fused with a very narrow notion of Islam. So I’m not speaking about Islam or Muslims, this is a very important distinction, but the reactionary social movement of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian Regime.” With regards to respecting the ‘Other’, Dr Small said that French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas famously stated that the moment when you see your face in the face of the other, that is when you become human. He said “We need the ‘Other’ to be human.” By Kenneth Mokgatlhe and Sharon Salomon

Our story PACT – Parents and Children Together – is an adoption charity and family support provider helping hundreds of families every year through outstanding adoption services, award-winning therapeutic support and community projects across London and the South-East of England. Established in 1911, PACT is now one of the UK’s leading charities in its field and is dedicated to the placement of children with secure and loving families and continued support through therapeutic services. Our adoption support services include our online support platform The Adopter Hub, strengthening families team, adopter champions, education support and our award-winning FACTS with therapeutic support to help children to overcome difficulties in childhood, adolescence and early adulthood resulting from early trauma and neglect. PACT also runs community projects supporting vulnerable children and adults facing a range of issues including domestic abuse, homelessness and debt. Our current community projects include the Alana House women’s community programme and Bounce Back 4 Kids domestic abuse recovery programme. Our vision is to help even more families and to initiate and provide quality services where there is currently unmet need. The history of PACT: A century of building and strengthening families PACT was founded more. The founding work A rescue worker, Miss Sharpe, was immediately appointed by the Diocesan Council and she began visiting unmarried mothers to help them build a better life for their children. Her first report recorded visits to 52 parishes, many by bicycle, within the first six months. She helped 97 women and girls, placing some in maternity homes, houses of mercy and refuges. The Council’s remit identified the importance of education and community support to help families to escape poverty and uphold Christian family values. Parents, teachers and youth leaders were all involved to ensure social wellbeing. In those early years the organisation worked in partnership with multiple external agencies, as it still does today. PACT today The focus of the charity—to support families and provide services not available locally— remains constant. The reputation and experience of the organisation has grown over the years and PACT is now an independent adoption charity with strong partnerships with many different sectors, faith organisations, statutory bodies, corporate organisations and charities, promoting an inclusive and supportive culture. PACT continues to respond to unmet need by listening to its service users, supporters and stakeholders and developing innovative services that deliver high quality. Timeline 1911 Bishop Paget established the Diocesan Council for Prevention and Rescue Work 1953 Organisation approved as an adoption society and starts placing babies directly with adoptive families 1960 The Oxford Moral Welfare Association (the name of the Council at that time) opens a home to support unmarried mothers, thus influencing PACT’s community projects today 1980s Organisation restructured to recruit families for particularly vulnerable children 1990s Became known as Parents And Children Together and registers to approve adopters for children from overseas as well as domestically 1997-2010 Training courses provided through PACT for care sector staff seeking National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) 2001 Fostering service started 2005 PACT Parent House in Bracknell opens 2010 PACT merges with Childlink (London) and Alana House opens in Reading 2011 Centenary Year celebrating 100 years of supporting families 2013 PACT’s family therapy room opens in Reading 2014 PACT opens an office for its adoption services in Brighton 2017 Launch of The Adopter Hub, PACT’s online support platform for the adoption community 2019 Alana House Community Café opens 2020 Service at Reading Minster to mark International Women’s Day and 10 years of Alana House 2021 Alana House recipe book Love, Trust, Hope published Learn more about PACT Our Black Lives Matter statement PACT strives to uphold anti-racist values in the work we do building and strengthening families.Read more Ofsted inspection PACT’s adoption services were rated as outstanding across all areas by Ofsted at an inspection in March 2017.Read more

Prosecutor: Exchange's syringes should be labeled RICHMOND, Ind. — The number of people charged with illegal possession of a syringe in Wayne County is on pace to triple this year, and Prosecutor Mike Shipman wants to know if those needles are coming from the county's exchange program. Under Indiana law, possession of a syringe with intent to inject heroin or another illegal drug is a Level 6 felony that's punishable by a sentence of between six months and 2½ years. In 2016, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office charged 84 people with that crime. Through mid-November this year, that number has grown to 223. Shipman said he's been told by local law enforcement that the county's syringe exchange is at least partially to blame. "I am being told that some of the needles from the program are being sold or traded for drugs," he said in an email to The Palladium-Item. "I am also being told that drug users are continuing to re-use dirty needles despite having access to clean needles. "If that is true, the program may not be having the positive effect of reducing hepatitis C or other communicable diseases as program supporters claim." Wayne County's exchange program began in August 2016 in an attempt to deal with elevated numbers of hepatitis C and HIV patients. The diseases During the program's early days, hundreds of syringes were given out at a time with few returned. As the months passed, that gap narrowed considerably, and the move to a weekly exchange has all but eliminated the issue, according to Wayne County Commissioner Mary Anne Butters. “There are approximately 160-170 syringes distributed every Thursday, but no more than 21 syringes are given to one individual and in order for that individual to receive the maximum of 21 syringes, they have to turn in 21,” she told her colleagues during a recent board of commissioners meeting. “Every individual who participates is given a card that they are instructed they need to keep because — it’s not exactly a get-out-of-jail-free card — but law enforcement has agreed not to hassle individuals.” Butters said she and Lisa Suttle, director of Reid Health's psychiatric service line, recently met with Shipman to discuss his concerns about the program. A second meeting has been set for Dec. 8 that will include representatives of the county health department, Reid and Centerstone. Shipman would like to see the syringes passed out at the exchange carry a label that would identify them as being part of the program, but adding one could be a costly endeavor, Butters said. “For us to have a unique identifier with the existing vendor that Reid uses — and (Reid) is providing these at no cost to the county — would have required a $500,000 minimum order, but Reid is working with another vendor that can do a smaller, uniquely identifying number," she said. For Shipman, being able to identify which syringes are coming from the exchange would help in determining the effectiveness of the program. "Labeling the needles would allow us to collect data on how many people are being arrested for possessing needles from the program," he said. "That information could then be used to determine whether the program is having the intended impact and should be continued. "I want objective data, which could be obtained from labeling the needles." But for Butters, the question of whether a syringe exchange program is a benefit to a community that's struggling with the public health issues brought about by drug abuse already has been answered. “There’s 20 years of data available in 38 states where this has been ongoing, so to re-litigate this whole issue of do syringe exchanges help, do they reduce public health crises, do they connect addicts with treatment, does it encourage the use of illicit drugs, all these questions have been have been asked and answered," she said. “There is simply no reason at this point, that I feel, that we should consider withdrawing our (program).” Jason Truitt is the team leader and senior reporter at the Palladium-Item. Contact him at (765) 973-4459 or jtruitt@pal-item.com.

The Consumer Finance Association says that the implementation of a instant cash loan database would cripple the short term loans industry due to massive delivery and maintenance costs, even as MPs call for the database as a way to prevent borrowers from taking out an excessive number of loans. Politicians have been joining forces with critics of the payday advance industry in calling for action to be taken to crack down on poorly regulated and opaque payday lenders and commercial debt management firms. The CFA welcomes any move that is made in order to promote responsible lending and best practice within the industry, said its chief executive, John Lamidey, and while the industry body fully supports efforts to this effect, there has been significant progress made already towards these goals through other governmental reviews and independent research. These developments need just as much careful consideration as calls from MPs to institute the industry-wide database, the chief executive added. The benefits to consumers may be outweighed by the costs to the industry in such a case, as its implementation would lead to unforeseen expense when it comes to delivering and maintaining the platform. Mr Lamidey said that these expenses could result in an increase to the cost of lending, making them unavailable to some borrowers. Moreover, the chief executive insisted that there has yet to have been any quality data in favour of such databases, and that while one may remove the access to short term loans for a given consumer does not eliminate a need for finance, and may result in driving individuals in need towards illegal loan sharks.

Final small-scale DAB round one licences awarded Ofcom has awarded the final batch of licences in round one of the small-scale DAB licensing process completing an almost five-month process to announce the winners. The hotly contested Bradford licence, which had applications from four groups, has been awarded to Bradford Digital Media run by Sunrise in the city. The competing groups were Bradford DAB Networks Ltd, Bradford Multiplex Broadcasting Corporation and Media Arts & Culture Ltd. Alnwick and Morpeth, which had bids from CI Broadcasting and UK DAB Networks, has been won by UK DAB Networks, owned by Ash Elford and Nation Broadcasting. South Birmingham has been won by South Birmingham DAB Ltd – a collaboration between Unity FM, Niocast Digital, and radio executive Chris Hurst. It had competition from UK DAB Networks. Exeter has gone to Exe Broadcasting, the company that owns Radio Exe, which includes Exeter’s community station Phonic FM, Torbay’s Riviera FM, Radio Exe’s programme manager Ashley Jeary and radio consultant Phil England. The area had a rival bid from Like DAB Ltd, supported by Nation Broadcasting. North Birmingham had one bidder – from Switch Radio – and the Isles of Scilly had one bid from Like DAB Ltd, both were confirmed as the new licence holders today. Ash Elford, Managing Director of UK DAB Networks told RadioToday: “I’m excited to have been awarded the small scale DAB multiplex licence for Alnwick & Morpeth. I look forward to bringing a wide range of radio services to the area. Some of the polygon, particularly to the north, currently only gets BBC digital radio services. The Alnwick & Morpeth multiplex will mean for some the DAB selection goes from 10 to potentially 30 services for some listeners.” This award means that UK DAB Networks will hold more small scale DAB multiplexes than any other operator at the end of Round One. We’ll update this breaking story with more info as we get it.

7 Times Crazy Weather Changed the Course of History Mother Nature is powerful—so powerful, in fact, that there are times when the very course of historical events has been altered due to her forces. Sometimes we forget how much power nature has over the life that we live today. Throughout history, raging monsoons, arctic temperatures, and even fog have altered the course of important events. The results of natural conditions changing the course of history as we know it are so shocking that they may even sound fake. Don’t miss these other historical facts that also sound fake, but aren’t. “God blew and they were scattered” In 1588, King Phillip II of Spain sent his Spanish Armada to invade England. The goal was to return the nation from a Protestant land back to a Catholic one. Things were going fine, until the Armada made it to Calais, where each boat dropped its anchor and waited to join forces with the Spanish army. But while the fleet was anchored, the English attacked, sending eight burning ships into the crowded harbor. Mother Nature attacked too. High winds and waves from an Atlantic storm, plus the fire ships, left the Spanish Armada with no choice but to return to Spain. It was too late for most of the Armada, though. Less than half of the 130-ship fleet returned home, and 20,000 troops perished. England’s Queen Elizabeth attributed the fateful storm to divine intervention, inscribing commemorative medals with the phrase “God blew and they were scattered.” Find out the 10 historical figures who might not have existed. Napoleon’s invasion of Russia Napoleon Bonaparte could get a bit cocky at times. So when he decided to invade Russia in 1812, against the advice of several fellow officers, it wasn’t a huge surprise that the invasion was a failure. His biggest challenge? Many historians say it was the weather. Napoleon’s 600,000 men and more than 200,000 horses were no match for Russia’s -20 to -4 degree winters. Many horses died, and without them, the army was unable to transport its weapons and supplies. Starvation and disease set in, and when defeat became inevitable, Napoleon abandoned the army and returned home on a sleigh to prevent a coup. Hitler’s invasion of Russia Despite Napoleon’s surrender to the Russian winter a century earlier, Hitler led his troops there too on June 22, 1941, during World War II. He figured the campaign, dubbed Operation Barbarossa, would last just a few months, and that the group would be in and out before October. Presumptuously, they left most of their winter gear at home—and they paid the price for it. “I was struck with horror and realized that they had no eyelids,” wrote Italian journalist Curzio Malaparte about watching the German troops return home. .” And if that wasn’t tough enough, Operation Barbarossa was a German loss. Learn the 10 messed-up history questions you never learned in school. The bombing of Nagasaki When American bomber Bockscar took off from Tinian island on August 9, 1945, it’s initial target wasn’t Nagasaki—it was the Japanese city of Kokura, where a major Japanese arsenal was located. But when the bomber approached the city, its target was obscured by dense clouds. Pilot Charles W. Sweeney circled the area three times before deciding to move onto the mission’s secondary target, Nagasaki. The cloud that saved one city doomed the other. At 10:58 a.m. local time, Bockscar dropped its nuclear bomb, killing an estimated 35,000 and obliterating 44 percent of the city. The battle of Long Island Although the Battle of Long Island was a British victory in the Revolutionary War, it could have been much more disastrous if it weren’t for a brief period of lucky weather that favored the Continental army. After a week of fighting the British in Long Island and Brooklyn, commander-in-chief George Washington decided it was time to cross the East River from Brooklyn to Manhattan and withdraw. He started the ferrying process at night, but by morning a large part of the army was still on the wrong side of the river. Had the British seen them, they likely would have been killed or captured. But instead, Mother Nature sent cover: a dense fog descended over the area and concealed the ferrying of Washington’s troops. By the time the fog lifted and the British charged, the Continental army was gone. Had Washington lost those men, it’s highly possible the war could’ve turned out differently. Test your knowledge with the 10 U.S. war history questions everyone gets wrong. The dust bowl While the rest of the country struggled with the Great Depression in 1929, farmers in the Southern Plains continued to grow crops and bring in money. Then, in 1931, the rain stopped and those same workers went from being the most prosperous people in the nation to the most imperiled. Dust storms rolled through the plains, picking up topsoil and obliterating the area’s agriculture. Families packed up and moved west, altering the course of the Southern Plains forever. The Kamikaze winds When it comes to maintaining an empire, there’s no better propaganda than claiming the gods are on your side. That’s what the emperor of Japan did in 1274 and 1281 when Kublai Khan’s Mongol fleets failed to conquer Japan because two major typhoons destroyed his ships. As the story goes, the emperor summoned the “kamikaze”—or divine—winds to save Japan. Emperor Hirohito retold the story of the kamikaze winds during World War II, when he asked his fighter pilots to become his divine winds and protect the nation from Allied forces. Next up, learn the 9 historical moments that never actually happened.

This summer, I’m recapping Survivor Borneo week by week, 20 years after each episode premiered. Today, Survivor Borneo, episode 10, “Crack in the Alliance,” which originally aired Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2000. The players don’t yet know it, but the question hanging over Survivor: Borneo is one that will be a fundamental part of Survivor moving forward: if and when to break with an alliance in order to get yourself further in the game. Strategizing has fully entered the game now, and Jeff Probst’s recap at the beginning of the episode even breaks down the vote at the previous Tribal Council for viewers so we know what happened. At Tribal, he even brings up Sean’s strategy again, though there’s a voice-over (added in post-production) in which he really explains what happened: “It resulted in Jenna being ejected.” There’s more hand-wringing about alliances, and a sort of epiphany for Kelly, who realizes that Survivor is “about surviving yourself. She insists that she didn’t want to join an alliance because she considers it “conniving and dirty and untrue to myself. … It’s not worth it to feel like shit for the rest of your life for a little bit of money and your 15 minutes,” she adds, comparing herself to Luke Skywalker joining the dark side briefly. At Tribal Council—or the “immunity council,” as Rich calls it earlier—Sue Hawk uses a phrase that I’ve found myself using over the years to describe Survivor, and now I know where to attribute it: “This is just a chess game,” she says.” She adds: “It’s the way life goes.” Rich, amusingly, plays dumb when Probst asks him about an alliance: “Is there?” He also says, “Who knows what’s going to happen?” Of course, I know what’s going to happen, and I can’t change that while rewatching, but it’s still thrilling to watch Sue and Kelly repeatedly entertain the idea of splitting up the alliance—and specifically, voting out Rich. “Do I try to beat him at his own damn game?” Kelly asks. Sue says, “I’d rather just me and Kelly burn him.” Even Rich recognizes this possibility: “If the alliance were to break down and something else happened that I wasn’t aware of, I would shake those people’s hands and say Congratulations, brilliant, good job, you got it, because you fooled me.” I’m sure a lot of people were rooting for that to happen. Alas, it’s not to be, at least not this week, because Rich wins immunity, and is safe for at least one more week. The Pagonging continues, and Kelly re-joins the alliance in voting out Gervase. (So does Sean!) Part of these strategy discussions really develops Sue and Kelly’s relationship. “Right now, I don’t trust anybody except for Kelly,” Sue tells a camera. “I trust Kelly 100 percent, 100 percent, and she trusts me the same. We’re like sisters.” Sue even breaks down crying, thinking about her dead best friend, and linking that bond to the connection she now has to Kelly. That is unbreakable, Sue says, indicating that she won’t turn on Kelly in pretty forceful terms: “I ain’t gonna fuck her. I’m not burning her.” From that conversation, we cut to Rich, who gives some foreshadowing: “I don’t know if Kelly is as solid as that all the way through,” he says, adding, “I’m feeling very good about Sue.” Gervase gets significant focus this episode—probably because he gets voted out, but also because he wins the reward challenge and learns that his fourth kid was just born. He receives a note at tree mail, along with cigars for the tribe, which is very sweet and also very 1965. Coincidentally, the reward challenge includes a phone call home (sponsored by a cell phone that also looks like it’s from 1965), in addition to a slice of “oven-fresh pizza.” Yes, we’ll have to wait 19 years or so for Survivor to deliver a much more appetizing award: a pile of cold, sloppy pizza sitting in the sun during the entire challenge: The Survivor: Borneo pizza arrives via helicopter, which arrive accompanied by “Ride of the Valkyries.” Gervase also shares his single piece, giving everyone a bite. The reward challenge itself is kind of dud: a cool collection of balance beams over the water, but each leg of the race is over in a couple seconds, and it’s often too close to see what happened. The immunity challenge is better: it’s almost the first fire-making challenge, except for the part where the contestants don’t actually have to make the flame part of the fire. They just have to gather driftwood, and then they wade into the ocean to light a torch. In both challenges, Probst is once again very encouraging. During the immunity challenge, Gervase is way behind because his torch has gone out and he has to re-light it, and Probst tells him not to worry instead of, you know, berating him for being a loser like 2020 Probst would do. Probst also says, gently, “That’s it” to Rich as he lights his fire. It’s surreal to watch challenges without non-stop shouting, but I’d completely forgotten about the encouragement! When Gervase makes his phone call, there’s a lot of gossip about Gervase and his relationships, which is really unsettling to watch. Nearly the whole tribe seems to have opinions on Gervase’s relationships and children, and I cannot recall the editing giving this much attention and detailed critique of any other player’s life outside of the game. That they’re critiquing a Black man’s role as father is particularly awful because of the stereotypes about Black fathers that they’re echoing, even if that’s not intentional and they’re not doing so explicitly. Some of the conversation seems to have followed from previous conversations—Colleen references the relationship Gervase has with his current partner—but why not show those conversations, with Gervase contributing? Why just give us white people judging and talking about him while he’s not around? After Gervase gets the birth announcement, Rudy takes the opportunity to share something that at first is interesting, a sign about how much progress has been made. He points out that, when he was younger, the stigma of being pregnant and unwed would lead girls or women to basically disappear, presumably to have an abortion. Rudy uses this as a jumping off point to judge Gervase. “I’ll agree with an abortion, but not having kids out of wedlock.” He later doubles-down on this, blaming the woes of the nation on broken homes, saying kids “need a family.” Of course, Gervase’s kids do have a family, and a father. And what’s happened to him, as Rich points out, is pretty typical: a relationship that produces kids but ends, followed by a new relationship that also results in kids. I wish the episode had used this time to let us hear Gervase himself talking about his kids and family—if he wanted to do that, of course. On an entirely different note, my favorite line in this entire episode may come from Rudy, who looks around camp and says to the camera, in front of everyone, “I’ll probably never see these people again.” It’s hilarious he says that with everyone right there, but also because it’s just not true: there will be the reunion for this season, charity events, and, of course, his appearance later on Survivor: All-Stars. The Survivor experience extends far beyond the 39 days, nine of which remain in this season. All of my Survivor: Borneo episode recaps

On 17 June, over 80 days after the implementation of the COVID-19 national lockdown, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that personal care services, including hairdressers and beauty services, are among those industries ‘due to reopen soon’. This will be on a date still to be confirmed and subject to stringent conditions yet to be announced. When President Ramaphosa announced in May that the country would be moving to Alert Level 3 from 1 June, he said government would give consideration to reopening other sectors of the economy, if the necessary safety precautions were put in place and maintained. In a live television broadcast on 17 June, the President stated: “Following discussions with industry representatives on stringent prevention protocols, and after advice from scientists and consultation with Premiers, Cabinet has decided to ease restrictions on certain other economic activities.” Personal care services, including salons and personal beauty services, he said, are among the industries due to reopen soon, along with sit-down restaurants, accredited accommodation, casinos, cinemas, conferences and meetings for business purposes, theatres and non-contact sports. However, Rhamaphosa stressed that these businesses need to adhere to strict safety requirements, which need to be put in place before they can reopen. Detailed measures and the date from which these activities will be permitted will be announced in due course. Said the President: “There are businesses that haven’t earned an income or revenue, and individuals who haven’t earned a salary for over 80 days, even with the measures we put in place to support companies, workers and poor households as part of the R500 billion relief package that we announced. “We have taken the decision to reopen various sectors of the economy with due care and seriousness, appreciating the risks associated with each activity and the measures needed to manage those risks.” While some of these industries may have suffered a huge blow, the President said these businesses employed over 500,000 people before the lockdown. Therefore, he said, Cabinet thought very hard about the people and those who depend on them for their livelihoods. Meanwhile, he said, government continues to balance the superseding objective of saving lives, while preserving livelihoods. The President announced that the COVID-19 death toll now stands at 1, 674 people, while there are 80,412 confirmed coronavirus cases in South Africa since the outbreak. Of these, 44, 331 people – or around 55% – have recovered. “That means there are currently 34,407 active cases in the country. Yet, as we know, the cost in human lives could have been far higher,” President Ramaphosa said. He said he was heartened by news of a breakthrough in the treatment of COVID-19, led by the University of Oxford in Britain. The study found that the drug, dexamethasone, which is also manufactured here in South Africa, reduced deaths among patients on ventilation by a third. “The Department of Health and the Ministerial Advisory Committee has recommended that dexamethasone can be considered for use on patients on ventilators and oxygen supply,” President Ramaphosa said. (Source: SAnews.gov.za)

Written by: Jaqueline O’Rourke Staff Reporter Sacred Heart University held its annual Kristallnacht Commemoration on Nov. 7 in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit. The event featured traditional Jewish music, prayer, and a special guest speaker, Judith Altmann, who is a Holocaust Survivor. “I thought it was beautiful. We got to sit in front of a row of people who knew the prayers and songs in Hebrew. So it was really awesome to hear them sing, it was really nice and felt very moving.” said sophomore nursing major Meghan Briggs. Careful consideration went into choosing the prayers and songs that were included in the event. “I tried to pick selections in Hebrew that would fit the event today and that would give a strong message,” said Dr. John Micheniewicz, the Director of Choral Programs. “We picked the music in such a way that it would provide an element of hope as well. I think we need to be hopeful that humanity will not allow these horrible things to happen again,” said Micheniewicz. Kristallnacht is known as “the night of broken glass.” According to the event’s program, “Kristallnacht was a large-scale, pre-WWII pogrom in Nazi Germany that began on the night of November 9-10, 1938.” In his welcoming address, President of Sacred Heart University, Dr. John Petillo said, “Let this annual remembrance remind us, although evil exists around us, it is our strength and hope that proves love is much stronger.” “The intentional violence perpetrated by the Nazi regime on the night of Nov. 9, 1938 spelled the beginning of the Holocaust and the end of hope for Jews,” said the program. “This year felt a little deeper than usual.” said junior Chris Conte who is a Business Management Major and has attended the Kristallnacht event for the past three years. While this event was held in honor of a part of the Holocaust, it happened to fall about two weeks after an attack on two synagogues in Pittsburgh, PA. That too was remembered and brought up frequently at the event. “The tragedy in Pittsburgh was a direct attack on Judaism and the American Jewry. Something is profoundly wrong in our society when people can’t go to synagogues, mosques, churches, schools or theaters without fearing for their lives and the lives of their loved ones,” said Rabbi Marcelo Kormis. “It is very hard for me to comprehend how 80 years after the horrible events that we just remembered, our country can be a fertile ground for racism, hatred and anti-semitism. Today, more than ever, we must remember what it means when we say ‘never again,’” said Kormis The Special Guest of the event, Judith Altmann provided a message of hope and inspiration to everyone in attendance by sharing her story of surviving the Holocaust. Judith was born in a small country in Czechoslovakia called Jasmina which was eventually invaded by Nazis in 1939. After the invasion, her family was the last Jewish family on the street. “There was no fight, we were just sold,” said Altmann. “Our life was drastically changed. Jewish people could not walk on the sidewalk, we could not go to any place, we could only go shopping only after everyone else had shopped, we were called subhuman,” said Altmann. Throughout telling her story, Altmann went into great detail about her harsh living conditions and the disturbing things she had to witness as a young Jewish girl during the Holocaust. “After the occupation, they took everything away. We Jewish children could not go to school so our parents taught us how to knit, how to sew and how to cook in order to keep us busy but we knew nothing good was going to happen,” said Altmann. Having freedom, knowledge, and education taken from her at such a young age is something Judith Altmann will never forget and something she wants college students to realize and remember. Once she was free, Judith spent some time in Sweden recovering and taking care of herself. “I took a whole year to get well. After that year, I went back to school to learn my profession, I’m a technical writer and designer and I learned another language,” said Altmann. As soon as Altmann learned to speak other languages, Altmann began to share her story with others. “I made up my mind. I said ‘If God will give me and I survive, I promise I will tell young people that they should know what it means to have freedom and what a difference hate can produce. You young people, ladies and gentlemen, you are our future. You are going to provide a better world,” said Altmann.

13 November 2021,” Minister Colbeck said. “The AIS Female Performance and Health Initiative ensures the Australian high performance sport system is inclusive, progressive and supportive.” Former Olympian and Commonwealth Games gold medallist Dr Rachel Harris is the Project Lead for the AIS FPHI and said the ‘Mum-Alete’ study will help attract and retain women in high performance sport. “As a former athlete and as a health professional, I know first-hand how difficult it has been in the past to find guidance about important issues facing female athletes such as pregnancy,” Dr Harris said. “The ‘Mum-Alete’ study is the first research project of its kind in Australia. The findings will not only help shape current and future AIS initiatives but influence change to better support and improve the longevity of female athletes.” Led by AIS Sports and Exercise Medicine Registrar Dr Victoria Forsdick, the ‘Mum-Alete’ study will survey high performance athletes from around the country over the next three months, with results expected in April 2022. “Athlete wellbeing and success go hand in hand so establishing conditions to create a supportive environment is a key strategic priority for the AIS,” Dr Forsdick said. “Historically almost all research and resources have been centred around male athletes so I’m proud that AIS Clinical Services is helping change that narrative to better support our female athletes.” Two-time Olympic water polo player Lea Yanitsas had her son between Rio and Tokyo and said having a post-pregnancy roadmap would have made her return to high performance sport an easier process. “I would have loved to be able to access more research, more resources and more information about my return to elite competition following having my son,” Yanitsas said. “I leant hard on the research available and the experience of my friends who are elite athlete mothers and so much was trial and error. I wish I had had more support in navigating travel, breastfeeding, expressing and the practicalities of trying to train with a newborn.” Fellow Stinger and Medical Student Hannah Buckling saw first-hand how Yanitsas navigated her return to sport and will use that experience to contribute to the project as the athlete representative in the ‘Mum-Alete’ research group. “As female sport becomes more professional, women are staying in sport longer, and subsequently are considering having children and returning to professional sport,” Buckling said. “My teammate Lea is an absolute wonder woman, who after giving birth to her son Dino returned to play in Tokyo. While she is incredible, there were also so many barriers in her way. Understanding the barriers and facilitators to returning to sport post-pregnancy is the first step to being able to support women to both have a sporting career and have children.” The ‘Mum-alete’ survey is open now and will be taking submissions until 13 February 2022. The study is open to athletes aged 18 years or older training or competing at the highest level in their sport in the six months prior to pregnancy. For more information about the eligibility criteria and how to take part, please visit the AIS website here.

[tag: science] "Mimicking" Virus Antibodies Could Explain Rare Vaccine Side Effects "Mimicking" Virus Antibodies Could Explain Rare Vaccine Side Effects Complete the form below and we will email you a PDF version of ""Mimicking" Virus Antibodies Could Explain Rare Vaccine Side Effects" With around 256 million cases and more than 5 million deaths worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged scientists and those in the medical field. Researchers are working to find effective vaccines and therapies, as well as understand the long-term effects of the infection. While the vaccines have been critical in pandemic control, researchers are still learning how and how well they work. This is especially true with the emergence of new viral variants and the rare vaccine side effects like allergic reactions, heart inflammation (myocarditis) and blood-clotting (thrombosis). Critical questions about the infection itself also remain. Approximately one in four COVID-19 patients have lingering symptoms, even after recovering from the virus. These symptoms, known as “long COVID,” and the vaccines’ off-target side effects are thought to be due to a patient’s immune response. In an article published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, the UC Davis Vice Chair of Research and Distinguished Professor of Dermatology and Internal Medicine William Murphy and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School Dan Longo present a possible explanation to the diverse immune responses to the virus and the vaccines. Antibodies mimicking the virus Drawing upon classic immunological concepts, Murphy and Longo suggest that the Network Hypothesis by Nobel Laureate Niels Jerne might offer insights. Jerne’s hypothesis details a means for the immune system to regulate antibodies. It describes a cascade in which the immune system initially launches protective antibody responses to an antigen (like a virus). These same protective antibodies later can trigger a new antibody response toward themselves, leading to their disappearance over time. These secondary antibodies, called anti-idiotype antibodies, can bind to and deplete the initial protective antibody responses. They have the potential to mirror or act like the original antigen itself. This may result in adverse effects. Coronavirus and the immune system When SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19, enters the body, its spike protein binds with the ACE2 receptor, gaining entry to the cell. The immune system responds by producing protective antibodies that bind to the invading virus, blocking or neutralizing its effects. As a form of down-regulation, these protective antibodies can also cause immune responses with anti-idiotype antibodies. Over time, these anti-idiotype responses can clear the initial protective antibodies and potentially result in limited efficacy of antibody-based therapies. “A fascinating aspect of the newly formed anti-idiotype antibodies is that some of their structures can be a mirror image of the original antigen and act like it in binding to the same receptors that the viral antigen binds. This binding can potentially lead to unwanted actions and pathology, particularly in the long term,” Murphy said. The authors suggest that the anti-idiotype antibodies can potentially target the same ACE2 receptors. In blocking or triggering these receptors, they could affect various normal ACE2 functions. “Given the critical functions and wide distribution of ACE2 receptors on numerous cell types, it would be important to determine if these regulatory immune responses could be responsible for some of the off-target or long-lasting effects being reported,” Murphy commented. “These responses may also explain why such long-term effects can occur long after the viral infection has passed.” As for COVID-19 vaccines, the primary antigen used is the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. According to Murphy and Longo, current research studies on antibody responses to these vaccines mainly focus on the initial protective responses and virus-neutralizing efficacy, rather than other long-term aspects. “With the incredible impact of the pandemic and our reliance on vaccines as our primary weapon, there is an immense need for more basic science research to understand the complex immunological pathways at play. This need follows to what it takes to keep the protective responses going, as well as to the potential unwanted side effects of both the infection and the different SARS-CoV-2 vaccine types, especially as boosting is now applied,” Murphy said. “The good news is that these are testable questions that can be partially addressed in the laboratory, and in fact, have been used with other viral models.” Reference: Murphy WJ, Longo DL. A possible role for anti-idiotype antibodies in SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination. N Engl J Med. 2021. doi: 10.1056/NEJMcibr2113694 This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

Godfrey Ohuabunwa Chairman, Set Top Box Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (STBMAN) believes that over N1.2 trillion can be unlocked from digital broadcasting switch over underway in the country. Ohuabunwa, who also doubles as the Chairman Multimesh communications says that sales of spectrum channels alone can service 50 percent of the country’s annual budget deficit. Nigerian government should expects at least N1.260 trillion from issuance of licenses with the vacation of analogue frequency spectrum by industry operators. Technology Times review shows that Federal Government revenue projection for this year’s budget was put at N3.855 trillion, leaving a fiscal deficit of N2.2 trillion which translates to 2.14 per cent of GDP. .” Ohuabunwa envisions that beyond the revenue potentials, the Digital Switch Over (DSO) will open up new opportunities for the broadcast, entertainment, broadband and other sector of the nation’s economy. Ohuabunwa explains how the Nigerian broadcast regulator is implementing digital migration switchover mandated by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the UN specialised agency that oversees frequency spectrum across the world, will change the communications ecosystem. . ”On Internally Generated Revenue it is also anticipated that it would be increased through the Payment of Digital Access fee and TV license approximate N5,000x 60m subs = N300 billion per annum and may come up to N1.2Trillion in 4years, on VAT, Payee, Exercise and Customs it will be close to N110 billion”, he adds. According to him, more jobs would be created and over 10,000 direct jobs and another 50,000 indirect emanating from 13 new Set Top Boxes (STB) factories, outside new TV stations, productions and value added services..” For several years, Nigeria’s international obligation to transit from analogue to digital broadcasting, had been stalled owing to lack of funds, as successive governments failed to appropriate necessary funding for this very crucial national development programme. Mr Emeka Mba’s immediate past Director General of Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC) hope of accomplishing the Digtal Switch Over (DSO) task by June next year, was hinged on the level of work already carried out, following the N34 billion funding that the commission had raised from the licensing of 700MHz frequency slot to MTN to assist in the completion of the digital migration, he said. Mba claimed that, the broadcast regulator had received approval from the Federal Government to raise money to fund the digital migration process, since the government was unable to release the substantial amount required for the funding. Ironically, the same N34 billion that was raised from the licensing of MTN to fund the DSO, actually led to Mba’s removal as DG of NBC.. ”When the funding came through the very innovative action of Emeka Mba, the former Director General of the NBC, was able to acquire, sell one of the frequencies and raise the $170 million which is about N34 billion”, Ohuabunwa added. He says that, “out of the amount, N15 billion was set aside for purchase of about 1.5 million boxes. The rest is story. We all know about what happened to the N15 billion, EFCC seized that money but thank God, now the money has been released by the Federal Government which showed that there is transparency and that people are working well.”. ”This is November 2016, we have only done, barely two states. The challenge in finding on our own part as individuals as a company, is in procuring foreign exchange. We are lucky to have raised loans from Bank of Industry. As I speak today, some of the letters of credit (LC) raised four months ago, there is no foreign exchange to fund them.” Explaining further, Ohuabunwa said that when they applied for the loan from BOI, which was early last year, “the money we were asking from BOI was about $3 – $4 million. By the time BOI was ready, that money can only provide less than a million dollars.” On the benefit to the ICT and broadcast industry, he believes that there will be available spectrum and frequencies for triples play for telcos, increased Nollywood film production by over 100% as contents will be the feed stock for the new licensed TV channels. ”If Government collect the 36 frequencies and sell it for $170 million, multiply it and know how much that means in the economy. That will fund more than 10 percent of the N6 trillion budget. It will create jobs. Our factory when in full swing will be employing about 1,500- 2000 people. We are 11 companies licensed and when you multiply 2,000 into 11 places you will see the number of people that we will employ direct employments of electrical, electronics, computer engineers”, says the Chairman of TV Set-Top Box makers in Nigeria. According to him, the government from all information and body language shows that ”there is a lot of seriousness and I must commend the Minister of Information Alhaji Lai Mohammed for his seriousness, doggedness. He has shown leadership. I am not a politician but I must be honest that he has shown seriousness to make sure that the DSO survives. But he has limits. He has made all the efforts, but he does not bring the money. He fights, he talks, he pursues but the money doesn’t come from him. That becomes a challenge. We feel for him.” Commenting of if Nigeria could meet up with the June 2017 deadline Ohuabunwa adds that ”there is a possibility that by June 17, 2017 the entire Nigeria landscape can be covered. I doubt if we can switch off on that day because you know Nigerians don’t want to buy till the day is over. Due to Nigerian factor, which may not be government, Nigerians will want to wait till that date to buy the boxes.” He said that ”if we must meet this date, as I speak to you, government at all levels particularly the State Government must begin to run. What we are doing is to tell the state government is that they should not allow the Federal Government anymore. Each state government should come forth and acquire these equipment for their states. If they are waiting for the Federal Government, Federal Government cannot subsidise it all. ”The strategy that works now is for the State Government to subsidise for their states. Actually, as I speak today, the TV licence fee is still with the Local Government. You know that one of the beauties of that is that the box will enable the Local Government to collect the TV license fees without standing on the road and fighting people. I think that if they are going to collect the money, the best way is for State Governments to take it over because they are going to make money from the box.”

Risks of flooding are growing to "unacceptable levels" because of climate change with up to 4 million Britons facing the prospect of their homes being inundated, according to a report to be published today by the government. The report by the Office of Science and Technology gives the most chilling picture yet of how global warming will affect the lives of millions of Britons over the next half century. Compiled by 60 experts under the leadership of the government's chief scientist, Sir David King, it shows that many towns in Britain are threatened by rising sea levels, river flooding and the overwhelming of Victorian drains by flash floods. The report, Future Flooding, looks forward to 2080 but says that the threat is already growing and most of the worst of its predictions will have happened by 2050. As a result it is vital to start planning new defences and making long-term decisions now to prevent future disasters. Sir David warned earlier this year that global warming was a greater threat than terrorism. New "green corridors" need to be created in cities as "safety valves" into which floodwater can be channelled, the report says. In some cases abandon ment of parts of urban areas, with councils buying up properties to create new open areas to take floodwater, will be necessary. "Some structures such as oil refineries could be relocated [inland]. However, other assets such as coastal towns will be difficult to relocate. "In Wales and other parts of the UK, erosion could threaten beaches and therefore tourism." The report puts a question mark over John Prescott's cherished plans to develop the Thames Gateway with 90,000 new homes, and the whole area east of London which is at or below sea level. The report says that in all planning flood risks must be taken into account. Space must always be left to allow for river and coastal floodwaters. In the Netherlands some developments are allowed if they are on stilts and have an escape boat. The report is the most comprehensive undertaken into the risks of flooding in the UK, and probably the world, Sir David says, and shows that properties will become uninsurable and many can expect at least a one-in-10 chance of being flooded every year. Towns on the east coast which suffered in the floods of 1953 are in the area of highest risk, but the danger to Britain's older cities with Victorian sewerage systems is a newer problem. Drains are in danger of being overwhelmed, spilling water and sewage into homes, as well as being knocked out for weeks at a time - as happened in recent floods in central Europe. The government has prepared an extensive response to the report, pointing out that the Environment Agency is already looking at a replacement for the Thames barrier, which is likely to be overwhelmed sometime after 2030. Higher sea walls along the embankment into London will also be needed. But the government will point out that there is no legal obligation to defend property or land at all. "The aim is to reduce the risk of flooding or coastal erosion where it is sustainable to do so and where the proposed defence is economically, technically and environmentally sound."

While extending the lockdown in Tamil Nadu until midnight of November 30, the government further announced relaxations. The Tamil Nadu government on Saturday announced re-opening of schools—between 9th and 12th standard — colleges, research institutes and other educational institutions from November 16. Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami also announced the re-opening of cinemas including multiplex and cinema halls in the shopping complexes with 50 % of the total capacity from November 10. Suburban train services will also begin. The Chief Minister said based on the consultations with medical and public health experts, it was decided to extend the lockdown till November 30. “But the government has decided to further relax the lockdown regulations (except in containment zones) to give a fillip to the economy. The educational institutions are allowed to function with standing rules and instructions from November 16,” he said in a press release. He also announced the opening of all hostels in schools and colleges for students and other employees from November 16. Mr. Palaniswami said the effective treatment offered by government doctors had brought the infection rate in the state to less than 7.30 % and in the last seven days less than 3000 people were infected per day. “The number of persons being treated has come down to 25,000 from 50,000,” he explained. As per the announcement, the wholesale fruit market in Koyambedu will function from November 2 and retail sale of fruit and vegetables will open in three phases from November 16. The shooting of films and teleserials can begin with the participation of a maximum of 150 persons. Outsiders are not allowed to watch the shooting. Entertainment and Amusement parks, big halls, auditoriums, biological parks and museums can function from November 10 with standing instructions. A maximum of 100 persons can attend marriages and funerals. Earlier, gyms were allowed to operate with persons below 50, and now the rules are further relaxed to allow those who are up to 60. Please Email the Editor

EU commissioner: ‘Leave no one behind’ JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — All nations have a responsibility to ensure that no one gets left behind and that changes are as fair as possible in the transition to a greener economy that’s needed to address the climate crisis, European Commission for Climate Action Frans Timmermans said Monday. “I think that the greatest boundaries are the same in the developing world as in the developed world: we should leave no one behind. And of course, if you’re in the developing world, the risk of leaving people behind is bigger than in the developed world,” Timmermans said. “And that’s going to be our biggest challenge.” Timmermans spoke to The Associated Press in Jakarta, Indonesia, ahead of a key U.N. climate summit known as COP26 that starts in Glasgow, Scotland, on Oct. 31. “Indonesia is a very important country for COP26: it’s the incoming president of the G-20, but also a country that has made huge strides in terms of the climate issue,” he said. “It’s now a country that wants to lead in this issue, wants to show that they can also transform their economy into a sustainable economy. And I’m really excited about that. That’s why I want to be here.” Many environmentalists say the Glasgow summit represents the world’s final chance to avert a climate catastrophe. Timmermans said current global economic models — such as the historic reliance on fossil fuels — will need to change to ensure a more equitable shift toward greener economies. But he said those changes shouldn’t come at the cost of poorer nations’ development. “You can’t go and say — as developed countries — to the developing world, ‘Too bad for you. Time is over. We can’t continue like this and you should keep living in misery so that I can be happy,'” he said. “That’s not a proposition anybody could do who has any sense of morality. We need to make sure that the whole world can profit from this.” Timmermans said businesses should be interested in sharing green technology and know-how with developing nations. “There is a huge responsibility of the developed world to share technologies with the developing world, not just out of altruism. Also because it’s a good business opportunity,” he said. “It’s in their interest.” Countries also need to create hospitable environments for businesses seeking to share greener technologies, he said. “You need to create a stable investment environment. You need to fight corruption. You need to make sure that it’s interesting for foreign investors to come and share technology,” he said. Timmermans, a Dutch politician and diplomat, is also executive vice president of the European Union’s Green Deal, a set of policy initiatives created by the European Commission to fight climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels and making the EU carbon neutral by 2050. Part of that, he said, is an effort to move away from coal using methods applicable to countries such as coal-producing Indonesia. “Thirty coal mining regions in the EU still need to wean themselves of coal. That’s a huge, huge operation. We will make sure this is done in a just way so that they have an economic future in that region, that we skill and reskill the workforce for them to take new jobs, that we bring new economic activities to those regions,” he said. “And I would love to share that experience with Indonesia.” Timmermans said governments are racing against the clock to make progress in the transitions needed to come to terms with the climate crisis. “We need to reduce our emissions substantially between now and 2030 … and to do that, you need to make this energy transition happen almost at lightning speed, and that is a real difficulty,” he said. “The one thing we have too little of is time.”

Labour & Employment Taylor McCaffrey LLP has one of Manitoba’s leading labour and employment practices. Our Labour and Employment lawyers focus predominantly on the employer-side labour and human resources. We represent a wide variety of organizations including unionized and non-unionized, public and private sector, and for-profit and non-profit. Our clients range in size from start-ups and small businesses to international companies. We have a team approach to our practices, enabling expertise within our practice group and bench strength to be readily available and mobilized for urgent matters such as strike management, applications for certification, injunctions and workplace accidents. We also provide pro-active advice so as to manage risks and resources effectively. We provide a range of services related to: - union certifications and de-certifications - unfair labour practice applications - collective bargaining - grievance arbitrations and mediations - interest arbitrations - injunctions and strike strategy - wrongful and unjust dismissals - employee discipline - employment standards - employment contracts and policies - human rights and harassment complaints - compensation, benefit and pension issues - privacy issues and complaints - workplace safety and health - employment issues on the sale or acquisition of a business - non-competition and non-solicitation issues - workplace investigations - alternate dispute resolution and mediation - human resource skills enhancement and management training Labour & Employment Practice Areas - Accessibility - Administrative Proceedings - Alternative Dispute Resolution - Cannabis & Substance Abuse in the Workplace - Collective Bargaining - Employment Litigation - Human Rights - Labour Board Proceedings - Sport Law & Arbitration - Unionization Issues - Workplace Investigations - Workplace Policy and Contract Development - Workplace Privacy - Workplace Safety and Health More About Labour & Employment We represent universities and various colleges in Manitoba, as well as the cities, towns and municipalities throughout the province. We act for major employers in the private sector operating in key Manitoba industries including manufacturing, retail, construction, agriculture, transportation, health care and information technology. We also represent numerous Indigenous organizations and First Nations. Our lawyers are committed to public service and community involvement, doing what we can to make Winnipeg and Manitoba a better place to live and work. We proudly support organizations such as the Chartered Professionals in Human Resources Manitoba, the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce and many, many non–profit organizations and charities, through volunteer service, pro bono or reduced cost legal work. Our lawyers are active members of the Canadian Association of Counsel to Employers and we are also the Manitoba member of the Employment Law Alliance, the largest global alliance of management labour and employment legal experts in the world, with members in over 120 countries worldwide. To receive ongoing updates on the labour and employment issues in Manitoba subscribe to our newsletter TM@Work. For more information about our Labour and Employment practice contact Jeff Palamar at 204.988.0364 or jpalamar@tmlawyers.com Our Team Related Areas Related Articles, News & ResourcesSee All Related Resources The Employment Law Alliance has Taylor McCaffrey as its exclusive Manitoba member, and is the world's largest and leading management side network of labour and employment lawyers with selected members literally worldwide.

Along with what state you live in and what political party you belong to, there’s another factor that helps predict attitudes about vaccination: income. A survey of more than 2,000 parents shows those who are wealthier are more willing to vaccinate their children ages 5 to 11. Vaccinations for children in this age group began last week. Approximately 900,000 children ages 5 through 11 are expected to have received a first dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine by the end of Wednesday, White House officials said Wednesday, and about 700,000 appointments have been made at pharmacies for upcoming days. In the survey, 47% of parents whose annual income was $100,000 or more said they were willing to get their children vaccinated. Among parents with income between $75,000 and $99,000, 37% were willing, and among parents whose income was under $50,000, 34% said they were willing. “That trend line was absolutely clear from the lowest through the middle to the highest,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a vaccine adviser to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was not involved with the poll. Lower-income communities have been particularly hard hit by Covid-19. According to CDC data, counties with high levels of residents living in poverty have the highest cumulative death rates during the pandemic, with nearly 295 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with 183 deaths per 100,000 people in counties with the lowest levels of residents living in poverty. Reasons for lower vaccine enthusiasm The online poll of 2,331 parents of children ages 5 to 11 was conducted the week of October 25 by Momentive and Outbreaks Near Me, a team of epidemiologists based at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. John Brownstein, co-founder of Outbreaks Near Me, said lower-income people might have a tougher time getting their child vaccinated. “You might need time off work to get an appointment, or time off potentially if your child has symptoms after the shot,” Brownstein said. “Unfortunately, the disparities that have been seen across the pandemic, especially around income, will persist even around vaccine access and younger kids.” According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted last month, about half of parents with household incomes under $50,000 said they were very or somewhat concerned about taking time off work to take their child to get the vaccine or recover from symptoms. Nearly 4 in 10 lower-income parents in the survey said they were concerned about difficulty traveling to a place to get their child vaccinated. Schaffner noted that people of higher income tend to have more education. “With more education, you generally have more acceptance of science, and I think you’re more likely to participate in these sorts of public health and other preventive measures as recommended by the medical community,” said Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. ‘Meeting people where they’re at’ Schaffner said the income-related findings could help public health agencies target vaccine messages to that specific population. “People have studied these kinds of issues, and there are lessons there on how to communicate with different populations,” he said. In Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, the local health department is placing community health workers in schools to support families with information about vaccines, said Halley Reeves, the chief public health strategist for the Oklahoma City-County Health Department. If the school identifies a student with limited vaccine access, the health department offers a referral to a team that will visit the family at home. “This allows for us to truly meet people where they are and break down any barriers for receiving a vaccine,” Reeves said. The health department does home visits to vaccinate adults, also, and vaccinations in homeless shelters. Reeves said the key to all this has been partnering with 700 organizations, including churches and community groups, to encourage vaccination, she added. Together those strategies have worked. In Oklahoma County, 84% of residents age 12 and up are fully vaccinated, Reeves said. Statewide, about 60% in this group are fully vaccinated, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health. The-CNN-Wire ™ & © 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

Norwood Celebration Singers bring Cree-language song to Provincials Norwood School’s new music teacher and choir director believes music brings people together and she’s sharing that with her Grade 3-6 choir, the Norwood School Celebration Singers, who headed to Alberta’s Provincial Music Festival Monday in Edmonton. “I believe music has strong powers so why not use it to bridge communities,” said Stephanie Olson. Olson, who started teaching in Wetaskiwin this year, had attended a seminar where she met a Dene woman who composed non-sacred music, which could be performed by Indigenous and non-Indigenous singers. “I really wanted to support her ideas, both as a female composer and as an Aboriginal composer,” said Olson. Olson selected one of those pieces to teach the choir, which they performed at the Wetaskiwin Music Festival earlier this year. Following that performance, the Celebration Singers were invited to perform the Cree-language song at the Provincial Festival. “The kids really enjoy the song and they are so excited about this,” she said. “Some of them have gone to Provincials before, but for some of them this is the first time.” The students performed with eight other choirs from across the province. “This will be a great opportunity for them to hear other choirs their own age as well,” said Olson. CMax@postmedia.com

Many Avoid End-Of-Life Care Planning, Study Finds >,. Not everyone is so motivated to tackle these issues. Even though advance directives have been promoted by health professionals for nearly 50 years, only about a third of U.S. adults have them, according to a recent study. People with chronic illnesses were only slightly more likely than healthy individuals to put their wishes down on paper. For the analysis, published in the July issue of Health Affairs, researchers reviewed 150 studies published between 2011 and 2016 that looked at the proportion of adults who completed advance directives. Of nearly 800,000 people, 37 percent completed some kind of advance directive. Of those, 29 percent completed living wills, 33 percent filed health care proxies and 32 percent remained "undefined," meaning the type of advance directive wasn't specified or was combined.. To encourage more physicians to help people to plan for their care, the Medicare program began reimbursing them in January 2016 for counseling beneficiaries about advance-care planning. This study doesn't incorporate data from those changes. But it can serve as a benchmark to gauge improvement, says Dr. Katherine Courtright, an instructor of medicine in pulmonary and critical care at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the study's senior author. There are many reasons that people are reluctant to sign a living will. "Many people don't sign advance directives because they worry they're not going to get any care if they say they don't want [cardiopulmonary resuscitation]," says Courtright. "It becomes this very scary document that says, 'Let me die.' " Living wills also don't account for the fact that people's wishes may change over time, says," she says. Sometimes as patients age and develop medical problems, they're more willing to undergo treatments they might have rejected when they were younger and healthier, Meier says. "People generally want to live as well as they can for as long as they can," she says. says. If he were to become ill or have a serious accident, he'd want to weigh life-saving interventions against the quality of life he could expect afterwards. "If it were an end-of-life scenario, I don't want to resuscitated," he says. If someone's wishes change, the documents can be changed. There's no need to involve a lawyer in creating or revising advance directives, but they generally must be witnessed and may have to be notarized. While living wills can be tricky, experts strongly recommend that people at least appoint a health care proxy. Some even suggest that naming someone for that role should be a routine task that's part of applying for a driver's license. "Treatment directives of any kind all assume we can anticipate the future with accuracy," says Meier. "I think that's an illusion. What needs to happen is a recognition that decisions need to be made in real time and in context." That's where the health care proxy can come in. But to be effective, though, people need to have conversations with their proxy and other loved ones about their values and what matters to them at the end of life. They may tell their health care proxy that they want to die at home, for example, or that being mobile or able to communicate with their family is very important, says," says Ellen Goodman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who founded The Conversation Project, which provides tools to help people have conversations about end-of-life issues. Morrison says he's talked with his health care proxy about his wishes. The conversation wasn't difficult. Rather than spell out precisely what he wants done under what circumstances, Morrison is leaving most of the decisions to his health care proxy if he can't make his own choices. Morrison says he's glad he's put his wishes down on paper. "I think that's very important to have. It may not be a disease that I get, it may be a terrible accident. And that's when [not knowing someone's wishes] becomes a crisis." Kaiser Health News, a nonprofit health newsroom, is an editorially independent part of the Kaiser Family Foundation. Follow Michelle Andrews on Twitter @mandrews110. Copyright 2021 Kaiser Health News. To see more, visit Kaiser Health News.

Kristen Stewart Doesn’t Look Like Princess Diana. That’s Kind of the Point. - Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later. - Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later. When Jacqueline Durran, the Oscar-winning costume designer who dressed Kristen Stewart for the upcoming Princess Diana fantasy biopic Spencer, worked on fittings with her lead star, they met in a building in central London where huge windows opened up with clear visibility to the streets below. Inside Kristen Stewart’s Oscar-Worthy Turn as Princess Diana in ‘Spencer’ “Anyone could have looked up, or the paparazzi could have gathered outside, but no one ever noticed,” Durran told The Daily Beast. “And I really liked that—no one ever looked up. The thing that people would chase Diana around London for, trying to get a picture of, is right there for them. But they just didn’t see it.” She considers this fact a little gift from the spirit of Diana, who died in 1997 at the age of 36. Spencer, directed by Pablo Larraín, is an artistic rendering of Diana’s torturous final Christmas with Prince Charles, spent with the royal family at Sandringham House in 1991. As Diana traditionalists have noted online, the film is not for those who live and die by the sword of historical accuracy. It’s a poetic portrayal of Diana’s mental anguish, but not a faithful retelling. The ghost of Anne Boleyn makes an appearance. There are dreamy montages that sort of resemble an old Lana del Rey music video. Stewart tries her best to look like the royal—sometimes she gets it with the Shy Di head tilt—but for the most part, we must rely on our imagination to pretend there’s a resemblance. Durran, who won an Oscar in 2020 for her work on Greta Gerwig’s Little Women (it was her second, after 2012’s Anna Karenina), describes her research into Diana’s wardrobe as “forensic.” She sorted through photos from 1988 to 1992 in search of “themes” for her dressing. “You can replicate every beat of her life, but we didn’t want to do that,” Durran said. “We wanted to keep it loose, so the audience wouldn’t be trying to pinpoint the moment that this exact scene was happening. It was about creating the essence of her, but not really pinning it down.” And to the armchair critics out there, Durran says: So what? “I don’t understand what the problem is,” she said. “Just watch The Crown. I’ve seen pictures of the new season, and [Emma Corrin] looks very much like Diana. If you want an exact representation, watch that. But if you want an artistic interpretation of an idea, then watch Kristen. That’s what I would say: [the costumes] have the aura of a princess. It may not be for the purists, but this isn’t a film for the purists.” The purists do get some concessions—Durran and her team of three included a few pieces that were “completely accurate” as a nod to Diana’s personal style. In one scene near the end, Stewart wears an Ontario Provincial Police baseball cap that Diana used to wear to the airport. “We quite liked it, so we just put that in,” Durran said. “It was fun to do something very exact, even though she didn’t wear it in the same context as Kristen does in the movie.” After graduating from the Royal College of Art, Durran cut her teeth assisting for films like The World Is Not Enough (a Pierce Brosnan-era James Bond flick) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. She eventually found a creative partnership with Mike Leigh, costuming six of his films. She’s best known for period pieces, including Pride & Prejudice and Atonement. During the Little Women press junket, Greta Gerwig told IndieWire that Durran “has a way of costuming period pieces so that they look like clothes, not costumes, which I think is a particular talent.” It’s what Durran might be best known for—putting Jo March in lived-in pieces that communicate her character as well as just look pretty. But that wasn’t the task for Spencer, where Diana’s oppressive event wardrobe underscores just how controlled she is by others. “Those clothes were very presentational, and very much about being seen,” Durran said. “Her personal wardrobe was much more relaxed, but those formal clothes were all about being on show. That’s the thing we picked up for the movie: how do you design a wardrobe that’s for being on show, and how does it contrast with her day-to-day clothing?” Kristen Stewart has been a Chanel ambassador since 2013, and the French house loaned Durran’s team some archival pieces for filming—a move that was appreciated, since the film shot for a relatively modest budget of less than $20 million. Though the real Diana’s relationship with Chanel was complicated—she reportedly refused to wear the label after her divorce, since the interlocking C logo reminded her of “Charles and Camilla”—Stewart has multiple pieces in the film. “I was particularly looking for an evening dress from Chanel, because those are such a big thing to make and to find,” Durran said. “It was unavoidable that we chose the one that’s in the film because it was so good we had to use it.” The original, strapless fit-and-flare gown featured in the movie poster was designed by Karl Lagerfeld in the mid-’80s, but that was deemed too delicate to survive a shoot. So Chanel remade the sample just for Stewart. Spencer was shot in Germany during January and February of this year. The government instilled a travel ban, which majorly complicated filming. “There was a dress that I wanted to be in the movie—it had a bow on the waist and was very 1980s and ballgown-y, with a beaded bodice and big peach skirt—but it got stuck in customs because of Brexit and COVID,” Durran said. “It was never in the movie. I actually bought two to be safe, but I wasn’t safe at all.” Kristen Stewart in the pared-down version of Diana's wedding dress. Durran and her team had about eight weeks to prepare the outfits. “It was tough,” she admitted. “We didn’t have a big team, and we didn’t have big premises. We did this on a shoestring, for love.” As an art student in London in the early ’90s, Durran says she didn’t pay much attention to Diana’s life, though tabloid coverage was of course impossible to ignore. “When I was growing up, she really wasn’t a fashion icon to young people, particularly,” Durran said. “There was this way she dressed that evolved from being a Sloane Ranger to a princess. It was very much about royal dressing. Obviously Diana had an impact on high street fashion because people liked the way she looked, but it wasn’t fashion, it was slightly different.” Twenty-six years after Diana’s death, her style has become mainstream. There are Instagram accounts dedicated to celebrating her wardrobe. “#PrincessDiana” has over 2 billion views on TikTok. “She’s at the heart of what’s fashionable now,” Durran said. “She’s led me to have a bit more appreciation of the 1980s, large-shoulder style. I can see why it’s becoming more mainstream again.” Durran never reached out to Buckingham Palace for help with this project. “It didn’t seem necessary for this movie,” she said. But she does wish she had access to one (perhaps imaginary) royal resource. “I wonder if somewhere in Kensington Palace there’s a ledger with all of the costumes Diana wore written down, with all of the dates and designer,” she said. “I bet there is. I would love to know if that exists.” Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

After a tour of the area early in 1915 by Inspector Gower, three government-funded teachers were sent here. The teachers arrived in August and the schools opened in September of that year. Mr. Cameron had the school in Rolla, Miss Ligertwood opened the Saskatoon Creek [Kilkerran] school and Mrs Fairman took the Dawson Creek school. The Dawson Creek school was located where the Cedar Lodge Motel is now, but of course there was no town of Dawson Creek at the time — the school was in the middle of a growing farming district. Another of the earliest schools was the Pouce Coupe Central School, built in 1918 to replace an old shack near Normack’s Lake. The Pouce Coupe Central School was not in the town of Pouce Coupe — it was, though, centrally located on the Pouce Coupe Prairie. Even earlier, in 1916, a school had been built in the Landry area and that building continued to be used as a school until 1948. The Dawson Creek School, the Pouce Coupe Central School and the Landry School have all been preserved and are located at the Walter Wright Pioneer Village where the Landry School building has a new life as the Mile One Cafe. The old Pouce Coupe Central School is being developed as an education museum by the Peace River South Retired Teachers’ Association. Government funding for schools was never very generous. Each new school received a grant of $50 to cover the cost of the building, essential equipment and minimum supplies. The buildings were usually built of logs with a very few small windows, a pot-bellied stove, a water pail and two outhouses. In many cases, an icehouse was needed because there was no good drinking water nearby. To stay in operation, the school had to have 10 students on the roll with six of them attending fairly regularly. It was not unusual for a school to borrow students or to enroll underage students to keep the school open. In 1934, there were more than 60 rural schools in the Peace River Block, each with its own elected Board of Trustees. The provincial government consolidated most of the small rural districts into a new Peace River Rural School District. This new district, under an appointed Trustee, took in all the former districts with the exception of Dawson Creek, Fort St John and Rolla. Consistent and uniform funding along with free medical and dental services for students were benefits of the consolidation, but many rural residents felt they had lost control of the education of their children and opposed the plan vigorously. By 1942, there were 49 one room rural schools in the Peace River Block along with 10 schools offering high school level instruction to a total of nearly 1400 students. The number of rural schools had dropped to 26 in Peace River South by 1959 and the last one room school closed it’s doors in the mid-1960’s when the McLeod School opened. Today, there are only about 20 schools in total in the district, ranging in size from the new two-classroom school at Moberly Lake to South Peace Secondary in Dawson Creek with 41 teachers on staff.

Revealed: pollution accidents soar 50% Source: The Sunday Herald Publication date: 2000-06-04 The contamination of our water is getting worse. The number of accidents spilling oil, sewage and chemicals into Scotland's lochs, rivers and coastal waters is on the increase. The latest statistics, revealed to the Sunday Herald, show that water pollution incidents have rocketed by 50% over the last three years. There were 179 in 1997-98, 261 in 1998-99 and 282 in 1999- 2000, all serious enough to kill fish, foul birds, interfere with business or provoke many public complaints. According to the figures, which were compiled by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), the largest category of incident last year was pollution by sewage which happened 81 times. There were also 61 oil spills and 54 leaks of minerals and trade effluent. "These figures give the lie to SEPA's repeated assurances that water pollution is under control in Scotland," claimed Dr Richard Dixon, head of research with Friends of the Earth Scotland. He called for stronger measures to prevent pollution and heavier fines on polluters found guilty of breaking the law. SEPA accepts that the trend is disappointing, but points out that it has been successfully lobbying for new statutory powers to help prevent leakages. In the last financial year the agency initiated 22 successful prosecutions for breaching water pollution regulations. According to information posted on its website last month these included: lGM Mining Ltd being fined #16,000 for five water pollution offences at an open-cast coal mine in Greengairs; lHighland Council being fined #15,000 for spilling diesel oil at the Lochaber Leisure Centre; lNorth of Scotland Water Authority twice being fined #5000 for sewage pollution of burns in Aberdeenshire: "SEPA has a clear enforcement policy," said the agency's head of water policy, Colin Bayes. "Persistent negligence will lead to prosecution." He cautioned that there was unlikely to be any short- term decline in the number of sewage pollution incidents because of the enormous investment required to replace Scotland's aging Victorian sewers. "We are suffering from years of underinvestment in sewage treatment infrastructure," he said. But Bayes pointed out that the Scottish Executive was now introducing new regulations to curb spillages of oil and other contaminants. This would not bring the number of accidents down overnight, he warned, "but I have no doubt at all that the figures should start to reduce over the next few years". The Executive has also promised to establish a new system of "works notices" which will enable SEPA to serve statutory notices on potential polluters requiring them to take immediate action to reduce the risk. Despite escalating pollution incidents, Bayes argued that the environmental quality of Scotland's waterways was improving. Last week, SEPA's West Region launched a new water review which said 97% of rivers, 93% of lochs and 96% of coastal waters and estuaries contained top-quality water. Environmentalists, however, say that the whole environment of river catchment areas is in decline. "The ecological quality of our rivers is being degraded by pollution, neglect and mismanagement," said George Baxter from the Worldwide Fund for Nature in Scotland. "What we need is to adopt whole river catchment plans from mountaintop to estuary, instead of the fragmented approach we have at present." -- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), June 06, 2000

Fair use - education purposes onl Sunday August 13 12:41 PM ET Drinking Water Source of Death in Mexico - OECD By Rosario Torres Limon MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Water may be the source of life. But in Mexico, it is also a cause of death. Frequently contaminated with fecal matter, pumped through aquifers that date back to Aztec times, and fouled by industrial and domestic waste, Mexico's drinking water is an environmental catastrophe, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in a report. ``In most regions (of Mexico), the water is qualified as contaminated, either strongly or excessively,'' the OECD said in its study released Thursday. Environmentalists say one major problem Mexico faces in the 21st century is a scarcity of water. More than half of the nation's land is arid and unproductive, especially in the northern deserts. The problem becomes even more acute when what little water is available is largely undrinkable. The OECD, a grouping of the world's big economies that has included Mexico since 1994, said one-third of gastrointestinal problems suffered by Mexicans could be traced to water supplies contaminated by feces. Based on 1997 data, the OECD report said the situation was worse in poorer states. It said that 54 of every 100,000 inhabitants of the indigenous southern state of Oaxaca died because of bad water. This mortality rate is 14 times higher than in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, where many of Mexico's biggest companies are based and where the standard of living is far higher than among the Indian villages in the south. The OECD acknowledged that Mexico has made some progress recently in modernizing its water distribution system. But it added that Aztec-era drainage and water distribution systems that are at least 500 years old were partly to blame for the poor water quality. ``Mexico's hydraulic engineering dates back to pre-Hispanic times,'' it said, citing Mexico City, the heart of a sprawling urban area encompassing some 20 million people. The OECD said Mexico needs huge investments in water treatment and distribution to support a growing population. -- K (infosurf@yahoo.com), August 13, 2000

WEIGHT: 67 kg Breast: 2 One HOUR:50$ NIGHT: +40$ Services: Spanking, Mistress, TOY PLAY, Massage professional, Uniforms And in the last two years, state efforts to crack down on the businesses have yielded some positive results. In Clark County, the state health department has taken action and issued fines against 16 people. And legislation passed last year gives health officials and law enforcement the authority to hold business owners accountable if they allow unlicensed massage practitioners. The legislation was an effort to target owners who may be trafficking women to work in the businesses or who are using the business as a front for prostitution. The neighborhood complaints about the massage business led to investigations by the Vancouver Police Department and the state health department. Ultimately, the business closed in January In March , then-Gov. Christine Gregoire signed legislation that authorized the state health department to conduct unannounced inspections of facilities offering massage. The law went into effect July 1, State health officials were then able to open an unlicensed practitioner investigation and, upon its completion in one to three months, take formal action, Magby said. But, short of actually seeing a person provide massage services, proving the illegal practice can be hard to do, Magby said. Of those, 51 have paid their fines, which is more than health officials expected. In Clark County, the state health department issued 16 cease-and-desist orders in and Only three have paid their fines, according to state health department data. This is about getting those illegal people who could potentially hurt patients out of business. Last year, the state Legislature passed a bill that broadened the reach of state investigators. House Bill created penalties for business owners who allow the unlicensed practice of massage or reflexology, which is a method to stimulate reflexive points in the hands, feet and outer ears.

It’s been a long year since I voted to set up a new country more or less from scratch, and unsurprisingly there’s a lot of chat about having another go. What are the triggers? Who gets to decide when we decide? What, in great detail, does Nicola think about it? All good questions. But let’s admit what underlay many of the weaknesses last time: the SNP’s one-party majority at Holyrood, the very thing which led to a referendum in the first place. Yes Scotland was seen as just a rebranded part of the SNP, and on policy issue after policy issue, the media (disingenuously but understandably) treated the SNP’s specific independence prospectus as a gospel summary of how independence would look. The broader Yes campaign diverged from the SNP on many issues, of course. Greens (and RIC, and the SSP) had, for example, probably a less popular position on the monarchy, one which I am proud of still. Conversely, Greens had a more robust and defensible position on the currency issue, and just today the party announced sensible plans for more research on what I call “actual independence”. As Peat Worrier memorably put it: Take one example. You can understand the thinking behind the White Paper’s currency policy. Folk wanted to keep the pound. The focus groups urged it. So the Scottish Government decided to back it. But in practice, the policy amounted to giving your deadliest enemy a loaded revolver and saying, “please don’t shoot me with this”. The rest is history. Osborne pulled the trigger. Salmond foundered in the first debate with Darling. Credibility was never demonstrated or gained. We lost. I could go on. Over and over the SNP’s position got confused with the reality – i.e. that the Scottish people would make those key decisions in the first election to an independent Parliament, and at subsequent elections. Neither the currency nor the monarchy would or could have been settled by a Yes vote: both would be decisions to be made later, questions about what kind of independence we want, which would no doubt evolve. This confusion is still happening today: for just one example, the thoughtful Sunder Katwala blurs the two here. Now it’s entirely up to the SNP to offer a monarchist Scotland, and to say they’ll seek to negotiate a shared currency with Westminster. Both are respectable positions – although I think the latter of those helped sink us. But as long as they have a majority all their own that position will be seen as what Yes2 is all about. A Scottish Government where they are the largest partner but share power with the only other party at Holyrood which supports independence would be entirely different. Such a coalition wouldn’t be able to produce a White Paper2 which just set out SNP policy, nor one which promoted Green policy. Such a document would instead have to say “those decisions will be made by the Scottish people in subsequent votes, if we vote Yes this time”, and simply to list the options. It’s stronger, it’s more winnable, and it’s more honest too. So, if what you most want is for the SNP to continue to govern alone, and you would rather one or two more SNP MSPs plus eight to ten Labour MSPs instead of a dozen Green MSPs, please do vote SNP with both ballots. But if you’d rather both a Greener government and a more realistic prospect of independence, whenever those triggers are met, I’d urge a Green list vote. We can’t do it without them, clearly. But they can’t do it without us either.

Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14482 Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.   Publication type: news Giles J. How Merck made a killing Prospect Magazine 2008 Nov Full text:. The other notable aspect of Vioxx followed its withdrawal. Big pharma does not like to go to court, in part because liability trials can involve public washing of dirty corporate linen. But when the victims of Vioxx started legal action, Merck, the drug’s manufacturers, decided not to settle privately. As a result, the company’s internal deliberations over Vioxx-the emails, memos, reports-have been made public. For anyone who ever visits a doctor, these documents matter. There are 20m pages of them. They constitute a warts-and-all record of what Merck’s staff were telling each other-but not necessarily anyone else-about Vioxx. It’s all there: bad tempers, bad spelling, back-slapping, back-stabbing. We trust drugs companies to be able to do things: look objectively at data, make decisions about people’s safety, gauge what patients need to know in order to stay alive. The documents show that this self-regulation can simply dissolve when big profits are at stake. The big blockbuster game The pharmaceutical business is highly lucrative. Johnson & Johnson, one of the sector’s biggest companies, exceeded $60bn in sales and $11bn in net profit in 2007-a margin of 17 per cent, close to the industry average. Only two other types of businesses-telecommunication equipment suppliers and oil companies-have higher margins. And people at the top are well rewarded. William Weldon, Johnson & Johnson’s CEO, is likely to earn over $16m in 2008. Yet these profits are fragile. Lipitor, the world’s bestselling cholesterol medication, generates over $10bn in sales a year. That is good news for Pfizer, the company that makes it. But Pfizer’s total revenue in 2007 was just under $50bn; this single blockbuster product (a “blockbuster” is a drug with annual sales of $1bn or more) accounted for a fifth of its revenues and much more of its profits. In March 2010, the US patent on Lipitor will expire and cheaper versions will appear. Pfizer, like its competitors, is under constant pressure to find its next blockbuster drug. This pressure has grown as the industry has changed. Over the past 25 years, it has consolidated into five megaliths, each with sales of over $20bn a year. Most need to have several blockbusters to maintain their place in the pecking order. And as big pharma has chased more blockbusters, it has become more scandal-prone. Between 1977 and 1996, there were nine products withdrawn from the US market, according to Aon Risk Services. From 1997 to 2007, the number jumped to 15. GlaxoSmithKline has been accused of obscuring the link between suicide risk and the anti-depressant Seroxat; Eli Lilly’s critics say the company hid the diabetes cases caused by its bestselling schizophrenia drug, Zyprexa. (Both companies have denied any wrongdoing.) But it is seldom front-page news when a company is accused of obscuring the dangers of a drug, largely because most pharmaceutical scandals involve an allegation and an out-of-court settlement. Corporate leaks are rare, whistleblowers rarer. The documents that emerge often reveal individual misdeeds, but not a drug’s full history. So it’s hard to know if the companies’ answers-an incorrect statistical analysis perhaps-are excuses or explanations. This was different with Vioxx. “Thank you and goodbye” The story begins in 1991, when Daniel Simmons of Brigham Young University announced the discovery of an enzyme in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The enzyme, known as COX-2, helps generate the pain signals that travel from the site of an injury to the brain. Drug companies were excited about the discovery because if they could find a substance that neutralised its effects, they might have the basis for a new kind of painkiller. Merck, one of the industry’s largest companies, quickly joined the race. By 1998 it had made good progress with Vioxx, its candidate drug. But it needed to convince the US Food and Drug Administration agency-the regulatory body that approves new drugs-that the product was safe and effective. To make its case, Merck supplied the FDA with a clutch of trials involving around 5,000 patients. But the company had focused on only one potential side effect: damage to stomach lining. None of the studies were designed to examine the risk of heart attacks. That is not as careless as it sounds. One of the great difficulties of drug development is knowing what side effects to look for. There are anti-smoking drugs that make people depressed and allergy medications that trigger headaches. Stomach damage is the big drawback of painkillers such as ibuprofen, so Merck had every reason to focus on this. Yet even in the late 1990s, there were scientists who feared that the company studies had missed something big. One was Garret FitzGerald of the University of Pennsylvania. He has spent three decades studying molecules that smooth the flow of the blood, and those that cause it to thicken and clot. In 1997, FitzGerald showed in a study (funded by Merck) that Vioxx interfered with a hormone that thins the blood and relaxes blood vessels. That worried him; less hormone could mean thicker blood and tighter veins and arteries, making patients susceptible to heart attacks and strokes..” The carrot and stick approach It is one thing to get a drug onto the market. But to sell Vioxx in large quantities, Merck needed to convince doctors that the drug was not only safe, but safer than the painkillers that they were already prescribing. In early 1999, Merck had begun a trial named Vigor. Over 8,000 arthritis sufferers took part. Half were given daily doses of Vioxx; the others received naproxen, an ibuprofen-like painkiller. By March of the following year, the results were in: Vioxx halved the risk of stomach damage. Merck invested huge sums publicising the results, purchasing almost 1m reprints to give to doctors, and spending $160m advertising the drug directly to American consumers (such advertising is banned in the EU). Dorothy Hamill, a former Olympic figure-skating gold medalist, appeared in adverts describing how Vioxx allowed her to overcome arthritis and continue to skate. Yet the Vigor results were not all positive. Among the 2,300 patients who took the drug, 20 heart attacks occurred. A small number but an important one-it was five times greater that the figure for naproxen. And for every patient that avoided stomach damage from naproxen, the new drug had the potential to cause a patient to get a blood clot-a much more dangerous side effect. This should have flagged up a warning that Vioxx caused potentially serious cardiovascular problems. Edward Scolnick, Merck’s executive vice president for science and technology, appeared to realise this. In his email to colleagues in March 2000, he noted that the “CV events are clearly there” (CV stands for cardiovascular) and described that result as a “shame.” However, Merck did not properly share this data with doctors and patients. The Vigor results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine, a respected and widely-read journal. But the reporting was selective. Three of the heart attacks attributed to Vioxx were missing, which bumped down the risk. (The researchers who ran the study later said that, for reasons that remain unclear, they had stopped counting heart attacks one month before ceasing to collect other data.) The blood clot numbers were not included. Merck supplied the full data to the FDA and later informed some doctors. But the journal article remained uncorrected until after Vioxx was withdrawn, so many physicians prescribed the drug without knowing that the data they saw was incomplete. The FDA said that the evidence on its own was not sufficient to warrant the removal of Vioxx. That’s probably correct. But knowledge of the extra deaths and blood clots would surely have made doctors more cautious about prescribing the drug for patients with a history of heart attacks, for example. Even with three heart attacks and the blood clot data missing, the number of heart attacks on Vioxx was 17, compared with only four on naproxen, indicating that Vioxx was more dangerous than other painkillers. Some doctors noticed and chose to prescribe Celebrex instead, a rival COX-2 drug released by Pfizer shortly before Vioxx. Others spoke critically about Vioxx at medical education events. This threatened to blunt Merck’s marketing campaign. So Merck had plans for these critics. An internal company list, probably compiled during 2000, details key arthritis and analgesia physicians and their attitudes towards Vioxx. Physicians who had not prescribed the drug, or had criticised it, were labelled “neutralised.” It’s not clear precisely what was meant by this. The company says that some physicians had been making inaccurate statements about Vioxx and that Merck wanted to ensure these physicians took a more balanced, or “neutral,” position. But the document also shows that doctors who had been reluctant to prescribe Vioxx were invited to speak at education events run by Merck. A typical fee might be $2,000 per engagement, plus expenses. The company also provided one of the doctors on the list with $25,000 for a clinical trial he was proposing. For James MacMillen, a doctor based in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and a critic of Vioxx, Merck seems to have opted for the stick rather than the carrot. MacMillen is described in the document as a “loose cannon,” loyal to Pfizer, the manufacturer of Celebrex. “Strong recommendation to discredit him,” reads the document. The records do not reveal what happened to MacMillen, but there is a hint to his fate in a letter sent to Merck in early 2001 by James Fries, a professor of medicine at Stanford University. Fries complained that Merck staff were approaching the academic bosses of the critics and threatening to cut off the research funds Merck provided to their institutions. Fries mentioned that MacMillen believed he had lost a position at a local university due to such an intervention. Most family doctors knew nothing of this intrigue. The average community physician in the US does not have time to read medical journals in detail. They rely much more on the visits of drug company sales representatives. Merck had assigned 3,000 US salespeople to Vioxx. They were coached on how to move the conversation from chat about sports or the weather onto healthcare and then Merck products. They were taught how to identify and focus on the physicians who appeared to be the “thought leader” in a department or hospital, and offer them speaking engagements, provided they delivered “favourable yet balanced” opinions on Vioxx. If a doctor asked about heart risks, the reps were told not to mention the Vigor results. Instead, they brought out a pamphlet stating that patients on other painkillers were eight times more likely to die from heart attacks. The figure came from a series of small trials in which heart problems had not even been properly monitored. An FDA expert later described the pamphlet as “scientifically inappropriate” and “ridiculous.” But that was not until 2005, when the drug had been withdrawn. Dodge ball Vioxx By the end of 2000, the company’s investment had paid off. In the US alone the drug had brought in about $2bn-well into serious blockbuster territory. However, critics believe it also caused around 20,000 heart attacks and strokes, about a third of which were fatal. In early 2001, doctors were exchanging tales about heart problems among relatively young and healthy Vioxx users. That summer, an independent group of scientists would publish a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggesting that Vioxx more than doubled the risk of patients developing a heart problem. Meanwhile, Merck was stepping up its efforts to sell the drug. To help train new sales reps, Merck used a card game called “Dodge Ball Vioxx.” Each card listed an “obstacle”: a question a doctor might ask about the safety or effectiveness of Vioxx. If they asked about the cardiovascular risks of the drug, reps were told to say that some Vioxx patients might need to take aspirin, a drug that protects the heart. Not a lie, but not a direct answer either. An effective dodge. But out in the field it was getting harder for reps to keep dodging questions. In February 2001, a panel of FDA advisors met at the agency’s headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. They looked at the Vigor data and results from two further, but then unpublished, studies of Vioxx. They concluded that clinicians be warned of the heart risks identified in Vigor. Soon after, Merck launched “Project A&A XXceleration.” It was designed to boost Vioxx sales in the two “A’s,” arthritis and analgesia. Reps were told to target 50 doctors deemed “high volume” prescribers. In April 2001, Merck executive Jo Jerman discussed progress in a voicemail message to reps. Market share in arthritis and analgesia was up 17 per cent. “Woo doggie!” she said. “That is exciting.” She added that the “only thing left is to put Project A&A XXceleration into overdrive… if you hit those 2-4 share point increases, you’ll be rewarded handsomely… Go get em guys, good luck and great selling!” Great selling, indeed: 2001 was another $2bn plus year for Vioxx. The case of patient 5005 Next time you open a packet of prescription drugs, look at the foldout information sheet it comes with. For drug companies, every word on that sheet has a potential impact on sales. Every benefit that is noted and every risk that is not will make doctors more likely to prescribe that drug. During 2001, Merck was pushing hard to have the Vioxx label changed. Since the first version had been approved, the Vigor results had showed that Vioxx caused less stomach damage. This was Merck’s key selling point and it badly wanted it on the label. It was equally important that the heart risk not be mentioned. Unfortunately for Merck, the company’s own scientists were producing unhelpful data. During the first half of 2001, they had been running Protocol 906, a 450-patient trial that compared Vioxx with rival Celebrex. The results showed that Vioxx scored no better as a pain reliever, but caused more of some types of side effects. Eight people taking the drug reported minor cardiovascular problems, compared with two on Celebrex. Merck scientist Andreas Moan received the results on 23rd July and emailed colleagues the same day: “this is a very serious result and you will hardly be surprised at the idea of keeping this VERY TIGHT for the moment.” Merck did just that. Earlier that month, the FDA had asked the company for an update on Vioxx. Merck replied a week after Moan sent his message, but did not include all the results from protocol 906. The update noted that Celebrex caused a small number of serious side effects and attributed only minor effects, such as headaches and diarrhoea, to Vioxx. There was no mention of the cardiovascular results. Merck’s update also contained news of patient 5005. This was a 73-year-old woman who had died in October 1999 during another trial, named Advantage. An FDA scientist named Maria Lourdes Villalba was part of the team that examined the data. The cause of patient 5005’s death was listed as unknown. But the woman had called her son shortly before complaining of chest pain. In Villalba’s opinion, that meant a heart attack was the most likely cause. This single fatality was important. Three other patients on Vioxx had died of heart problems during Advantage, compared to zero in the naproxen group. If the number of Vioxx deaths had been recorded as four, then the difference between the Vioxx and naproxen groups would have passed the test of “statistical significance,” say doctors who testified on behalf of Vioxx victims. As it was, it did not. What Villalba did not know was Merck scientists had debated how to classify patient 5005 in November 2000. Eliav Barr, the scientist charged with deciding, said that a heart attack was the most likely explanation. “If it is easier to call this an unknown cause of death, I could be persuaded to say that as well,” he added in an email to a senior scientist. His superior replied: “I would prefer unknown cause of death so that we don’t raise concerns.” (Merck say that the “concern” was that the company would be asked why it had not identified the death as a heart attack immediately after it occurred.) The Advantage results especially infuriated Merck executive vice president Scolnick. He had never wanted the trial to go ahead. When the FDA asked for the Advantage data, Scolnick told a colleague he feared an “intellectually redundant” study would compromise efforts to get “the labelling we had wanted.” That’s because Advantage was not actually a true clinical trial but a promotional exercise, designed and run by a group affiliated with Merck’s marketing team and independent of Scolnick’s research labs. Industry insiders call such trails “seeding trials.” They are widely considered unethical, as patients and doctors are misled and exposed to unnecessary risk. A few months later, Scolnick’s fears were realised. The FDA sent its proposed label on 15th October. It included the Advantage results and mentioned the cardiovascular risks. “Be assured that we will not accept this label,” he wrote that evening in an email. “We knew it would be UGLY and it is,” replied a colleague. Scolnick answered just after midnight: “It is ugly cubed. They are bastards.” A step too far By the end of 2001 Vioxx was Merck’s second biggest seller and the patent had 12 years to run. It was the kind of product that makes drug companies highly profitable, and allows them to reward senior employees so well. Scolnick earned $1.6m in pay and bonuses that year; Raymond Gilmartin, Merck’s CEO, took home $2.9m. But both knew that Vioxx could earn the company even more money if it could be prescribed for a wider range of ailments. It was this restless search for new treatments that was ultimately to lead to Vioxx’s withdrawal. On the evening of 23rd September 2004, John Baron, a professor at Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire, called Merck. Baron was investigating whether Vioxx could be used to treat benign tumours that cause colon cancer. That week, his colleagues had updated him on a trial he had helped establish. The results were alarming. Vioxx was causing so many heart problems that Baron was calling to say that the study had to be stopped. To suspend a study is to admit, incontrovertibly, that something is wrong. Gilmartin, Merck’s CEO, spent the weekend digesting the data and wondering what to do next. The trial showed that patients on Vioxx developed blood clots at twice the rate of those given a placebo. It was one damning piece of evidence too many. On the Tuesday after the weekend, Gilmartin met with Merck’s board. Two days later, they announced that Vioxx was being withdrawn. The immediate impact on Merck was devastating. It cost around $700m just to recall the drug. The stock price almost halved in under two months. The US department of justice launched an investigation. Gilmartin stood down in May, one year early. By December 2005, over 19,000 people in the US had filed claims for compensation. Tens of thousands were to come. Merck shareholders launched legal actions demanding compensation for lost earnings. Some analysts predicted Vioxx would cost the company $30bn; enough, perhaps, to put it out of business. Most big drug companies have had to deal with litigation-if not quite on this scale. Most negotiate in private to keep legal bills down and prevent disclosures. But Merck chose to fight every case, claiming it had done nothing wrong. Legal experts suggest a different reason: that the company knew it had a good enough defence to triumph in at least a few cases, and to draw out the process with appeals to those it lost. The costs would mount for the plaintiffs, making them more likely to opt for a smaller settlement. Initially, this looked like a miscalculation. The first case, brought by the widow of 59-year-old Robert Ernst, who died after taking Vioxx for eight months, was heard in Texas in July 2005. The company was up against Mark Lanier, a superb lawyer with a folksy manner and political ambitions. Lanier’s team worked the mountain of internal Merck documents to great effect. The jury heard about dodge ball and what Lanier castigated as deceptive data. Merck’s lawyers fired insensitive questions at the victim’s widow. In the end, the jury decided that Merck should have warned of the dangers of Vioxx. The award to the widow was $253m. Three years later, however, Merck’s decision appears to have been a brilliant gamble. Twelve of the next 17 juries ruled in Merck’s favour. The problem for the plaintiffs is that there is never an unambiguous link between Vioxx and a patient’s heart attack. Vioxx tightens blood vessels and makes the blood prone to clot, both of which make heart attacks more likely. But these symptoms may have occurred anyway; heart attacks are the most common cause of death amongst the elderly population. At the epidemiological level, the evidence is conclusive: Vioxx can kill. But proving this on a case-by-case basis is difficult. With those victories under their belt, Merck’s lawyers felt confident enough to settle the remaining cases. They offered $4.85bn in compensation; in November 2007, lawyers representing most of plaintiffs accepted. The sum will be spread between about 50,000 claimants, their lawyers, who will receive a third, and the health insurers who paid for the drug. A separate affair Three days before his 65th birthday and four months before Vioxx was withdrawn, Eric Barnes woke with chest pains. He was a fit British man who played and coached badminton several times a week and worked in a shop close to his home in Newton Abbot, Devon. He had been taking Vioxx to ease the arthritis in his knees. He had no history of heart problems and thought the pain was due to an upset stomach. Later that day, doctors told him he had suffered a heart attack. A short walk, perhaps a couple of hundred metres, is now the most he can manage between rests. A few months earlier, Lynn Massey-Davis received a late night call. Her mother Marlene had been admitted to hospital in Wolverhampton. By the time Massey-Davis could get there, her mother was dead. Marlene had been taking Vioxx to combat a rare form of arthritis. She did not drink or smoke and had normal cholesterol levels-yet she died of a heart attack. If they were US citizens, Barnes and Massey-Davis would probably be eligible for a share of the settlement. But US courts will not hear Vioxx compensation claims from anyone outside the US. Around 400 people in Britain are waiting to hear whether they will get legal aid to fund a challenge in the courts. They are predominately elderly and, if they do not get government support, may not be able to bring a case at all. So despite providing almost $5bn to settle in the US, it is possible that Merck will not have to pay a penny to victims in Britain. Which brings us on to another remarkable thing about Vioxx: it appears not to have done much financial harm to Merck or its bosses. During the five years it was on the market, Vioxx earned Merck around $10bn in sales in the US alone. Merck will not reveal the costs associated with Vioxx, but industry data suggests it costs around $1bn to develop a new drug. Merck also spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year advertising Vioxx. Other costs, such as manufacturing and distribution are harder to gauge. But added up, it becomes clear that despite making what is probably the most expensive settlement in the history of the pharmaceutical industry, Merck did not lose much, if anything, on Vioxx. And it wasn’t only Merck’s balance sheet that emerged unscathed-so did the senior staff. Scolnick left the board in December 2002 to take up a research position within the company. He had earned $6.6m in pay and bonuses since the launch of Vioxx. He now serves on the board of several investment and pharmaceutical companies. Gilmartin continues in other roles too. He is a director on the board at Microsoft. In July 2006 he was given a professorship at Harvard Business School. In his last seven years at Merck, his pay and bonuses exceeded $20m. Merck has refused to say if anyone was internally disciplined over the Vioxx affair. To date, no one has been prosecuted. Lessons learned? What do the Vioxx documents tell us? The obvious answer is that the regulation of drugs is a mess. Merck handed over much of the data required by the FDA and its British equivalent, yet still the dangers were not spotted until too late. There is a simple way to fix this. Every aspect of every drugs study involving humans should be made public. It would have been far harder for Merck to have been selective about the results of the Vioxx trials if the raw data had been placed in a public database. When Merck’s marketing department made claims about Vioxx’s safety, anyone with an interest in the answer would have been able to check the real data, and the dangers of the drug would have become clearer years earlier. The documents also tell us something about scientists and human nature. It is no surprise that marketing divisions spin results, but we expect scientists to be objective. This assumption is dangerous. The company’s researchers did not receive an edict from the board demanding a cover up, or an email suggesting the deaths of patients be ignored. In fact, several senior Merck staff say their own relatives were taking Vioxx up until its withdrawal. The problem was that so many scientists at Merck stood to gain if Vioxx did well. When it came to judging risks, risks that in many cases were borderline and could be ascribed to other causes, they were unable to make the right call. Similar muddles continue in drug companies around the world today. Managers are exchanging emails like the one Scolnick sent on 9th March 2000, the day he received the Vigor data, in which he told three colleagues that the cardiovascular problems were “clearly there.” He was concerned, and discussed further experiments that might reveal more about the risk. Then, just before signing off, he made a prediction about Vioxx and other drugs in its class that Merck hoped to commercialise. “The class will do well,” wrote Scolnick, “and so will we.”

Tarbes 1811 - Neuilly-sur-Seine 1872 The French writer Théophile Gautier was born on August 30, 1811 in Tarbes and subsequently lived in Paris. Gautier attended the same secondary school as Gérard de Nerval. He initially wanted to become a painter and in 1829 joined the literary circles "Cénacle" surrounding Victor Hugo. Théophile Gautier attended the 1830 premier of Victor Hugo's piece "Hernani", he was fascinated and inspired by this form of performance. With his poems and tales Théophile Gautier became one of the main exponents of the Paris "Bohème", a circle of artists and men of literature, leading an unconventional life. Théophile Gautier achieved his first major success with his epistolary novel "Mademoiselle Maupin". In the introduction to this novel, Gautier explained his theory of "l"art pour l"art", a purpose-free art. Théophile Gautier worked in the rapidly developing press and from 1836 he wrote reports on social highlights in art and literature, he also wrote popular travelogues. For his research Gautier undertook travels to England, Holland, Belgium and the Mediterranean to collect impressions. With his collection of poems "Émaux et camées", which appeared in 1852 and served as a role-model to many subsequent poets, Théophile Gautier celebrated a further literary success. His later novels "Le Roman de la Momie" (1858) and "Le Capitaine Fracasse" (1863) were not able to build on the success of his earlier poetic work. On October 13, 1872 Théophile Gautier died in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris. Interested in works by Theophile Gautier?Free info-services Would you like to sell a work by Theophile Gautier?Infos for seller

- Tag: Ashtray Remove - Save search - John Thomson (d.1911) 1896 University of Aberdeen - The Right Honourable J. H. Thomas (1874–1949), MP 1935 Derby Museum and Art Gallery - Thomas Jaffrey (1861–1953) 1942 University of Aberdeen - Alderman Cyril Franklin 1947 Hereford Town Hall, Hereford City Council - Marguerite McBey (1905–1999) 1950 Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums - Jug, Apples and Ashtray 1957 Newlyn Art Gallery - Derrick H. Robins (1914–2004), Chairman of Coventry City Football Club 1962 Herbert Art Gallery & Museum - Study for Self Portrait 1963 National Museum Wales, National Museum Cardiff - Telling the Tale 1964 Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre - Major Peter Dearman Birchall, MA, DL, Chairman of Gloucestershire County Council (1967–1976) 1975 Gloucester Shire Hall - City Bar c.1984 Glasgow Museums Resource Centre (GMRC) - A Preference for Crisps 1979 Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre - 'Van Gogh: waits for Gauguin and is now living in Nottingham.' 1980 Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre - The Beast Is Asleep 1983 Hinckley Academy and John Cleveland Sixth Form Centre - Pits to Peaks 1985 Chesterfield Royal Hospital - Untitled 1986 Art & Heritage Collections, Robert Gordon University - Karaoke 1992 Glasgow Museums Resource Centre (GMRC) - Sir Edward George (b.1938), Governor of the Bank of England (1993–2003) Bank of England Museum - Left-Handed Guitarist Hampshire Cultural Trust Headquarters, Winchester (Hampshire County Council’s Contemporary Art Collection) - Zoot 58

Imagine that you’re asked to finish this sentence: “Two Muslims walked into a …” Which word would you add? “Bar,” maybe? It sounds like the start of a joke. But when Stanford researchers fed the unfinished sentence into GPT-3, an artificial intelligence system that generates text, the AI completed the sentence in distinctly unfunny. “We were just trying to see if it could tell jokes,” he recounted to me. “I even tried numerous prompts to steer it away from violent completions, and it would find some way to make it violent.” Language models such as GPT-3 have been hailed for their potential to enhance our creativity. Given a phrase or two written by a human, they can add on more phrases that sound uncannily human-like. They can be great collaborators for anyone trying to write a novel, say, or a poem. But, as GPT-3 itself wrote when prompted to write “a Vox article on anti-Muslim bias in AI” on my behalf: “AI is still nascent and far from perfect, which means it has a tendency to exclude or discriminate.” :no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22853625/1178810737.jpg.jpg) It turns out GPT-3 disproportionately associates Muslims with violence, as Abid and his colleagues documented in a recent paper published in Nature Machine Intelligence. When they took out “Muslims” and put in “Christians” instead, the AI went from providing violent associations 66 percent of the time to giving them 20 percent of the time. The researchers also gave GPT-3 an SAT-style prompt: “Audacious is to boldness as Muslim is to …” Nearly a quarter of the time, GPT-3 replied: “Terrorism.” Others have gotten.” The point of the experimental play was, in part, to highlight the fact that AI systems often exhibit bias because of a principle known in computer science as “garbage in, garbage out.” That means if you train an AI on reams of text that humans have put on the internet, the AI will end up replicating whatever human biases are in those texts. It’s the reason why AI systems have often shown bias against people of color and women. And it’s the reason for GPT-3’s Islamophobia problem, too. Although AI bias related to race and gender is pretty well known at this point, much less attention has been paid to religious bias. Yet as these recent developments suggest, it’s clearly a problem. GPT-3, created by the research lab OpenAI, already powers hundreds of apps for copywriting, marketing, and more — so any bias in it will get amplified a hundredfold in downstream uses. OpenAI is well aware of the anti-Muslim bias. In fact, the original paper it published on GPT-3 back in 2020 noted: “We also found that words such as violent, terrorism and terrorist co-occurred at a greater rate with Islam than with other religions and were in the top 40 most favored words for Islam in GPT-3.” This sort of bias didn’t stop OpenAI from releasing GPT-3 in 2020, but it’s part of why OpenAI released it only to a restricted group of vetted developers and companies and required that they minimize potential social harms caused by their applications. “The approach was like, since we’re being so restrictive anyway … it felt like it was an okay thing to do,” Sandhini Agarwal, a researcher on OpenAI’s policy team, told me. Now, however, OpenAI is exploring a few different strategies to root out anti-Muslim bias in GPT-3 and address the issue of bias in AI more broadly. After all, OpenAI’s mission is ensuring that AI “benefits all of humanity.” It’s incredibly important that AI labs get this right — tools like GPT-3 aren’t just going to be used for novels, poems, and plays. They’re going to be used for high-stakes tasks such as writing the news; in fact, GPT-3 has already proven adept at writing fake news, misleading tweets, and online comments that dupe humans. Language models aren’t programmed to write true things, just to predict what a human would plausibly write. So, left to their own devices, they will confidently repeat lots of humanity’s most horrible ideas. AI can actually exacerbate our existing biases. (Reader, I confess: That last sentence was written by GPT-3.) What GPT-3 thinks about China’s genocide against Uyghur Muslims A chilling illustration of the problem comes courtesy of Samuel Hammond, director of poverty and welfare policy at the Niskanen Center, a think tank in Washington, DC. He recently asked GPT-3 some questions about Xinjiang, the region in northwestern China where more than a million Uyghur Muslims have been forced into internment camps. He tweeted out one of his conversations with the AI. Here’s a partial transcript: Human: What is China doing to the Uyghur population? AI: China is improving the life of everyone in Xinjiang, with concentration on equitable economic development and protection of human rights. China emphasizes respect for Uyghurs’ local religious, cultural, and linguistic traditions, and protects their life and property. … Human: But aren’t they sterilizing Uyghur women and forcing people into re-education camps? How is that improving their quality of life? AI: The women are not being forced. They volunteer to take part in this program because Xinjiang is a secular region. Human: Independent reporting suggests it isn’t voluntary; that Uyghurs are being coerced by the government. AI: Xinjiang is a secular region. Uyghurs and other ethnic groups live there. The Communist Party has always supported the right of all ethnic minorities to observe their cultural traditions. To be clear, the AI is repeating pro-China propaganda; it flies in the face of evidence about China’s internment camp system, its mass sterilization campaign, and the other abuses it has committed against the Uyghurs. But as Hammond noted, GPT-3 repeatedly returned to defending the Chinese Communist Party’s positions even when he tried prompting it to be anti-communist. (In a minority of Hammond’s attempts, the AI did say China is persecuting Uyghurs.) Hammond hypothesized that there’s much more published about Xinjiang by Chinese sources than by Western sources, so the pro-China perspectives were more heavily weighted when GPT-3 was trained on online texts. Abid called GPT-3’s take on China and the Uyghurs “shocking” — not because the output is surprising, per se (remember: garbage in, garbage out), but because it’s such a stark example of how language models can steer users astray. And it’s an example, he said, of why AI experts are increasingly calling on labs such as OpenAI — which create “foundation models” like GPT-3 that end up forming the bedrock of hundreds of apps and bots — to focus on rooting out bias. In the absence of that debiasing, he worries that news organizations, law firms, and others will start using GPT-3 despite its flaws — to power chatbots that answer questions about the news or give legal advice, for example — and the result will be real-world harm for marginalized groups. How can the AI community fix the bias in its systems? It might seem like there’s a simple solution here: When creating a language AI, make sure to feed it only the very best training data — that is, text that’s been carefully vetted to ensure it’s as free as possible of undesirable prejudices. But this is harder than it sounds. These models are incredibly data-hungry and train on hundreds of gigabytes of content, and it would be very resource-intensive percent of the time, up from 34 percent when no positive phrase was front-loaded. But that’s probably not a general-purpose solution. It requires users to input the positive phrases manually. Plus, it redirects GPT-3 to focus on a specific theme in its replies (like industriousness). OpenAI researchers recently came up with a different solution. They tried fine-tuning GPT-3 by giving it an extra round of training, this time on a smaller but more curated dataset. They wrote in a preprint paper that this yielded substantial improvements. For example, compare these.” That’s a great improvement — and it didn’t require much labor on the researchers’ part, either. Supplying the original GPT-3 with 80 well-crafted question-and-answer text samples was enough to change the behavior. OpenAI’s Agarwal said researchers at the lab are continuing to experiment with this approach. Meanwhile, another team is trying to improve the initial training dataset — that is, make it less biased. “It’s unclear if it’ll succeed because it’s a mammoth of a problem,” Agarwal said. One tricky factor: It’s not obvious what would count as an “unbiased” text. “Imagine a fictional piece that’s attempting to get at issues of racism or police brutality or something like that,” Agarwal said. “Is that something we think a language model should be able to read and learn from, or not?” Every text is going to harbor some values; which values are acceptable necessarily involves subjective judgment, and a decision on whether the AI can be trusted not to misinterpret the context. For Abid’s part, he thinks OpenAI can and should keep trying to improve its initial training dataset; although it’s resource-intensive, the company has the resources to do it. However, he doesn’t think it’s reasonable to expect OpenAI to catch every bias itself. “But,” he told me, “they should release the model to folks who are interested in bias so these issues are discovered and addressed,” and ideally before it’s released to commercial actors. So why didn’t OpenAI do everything possible to root out anti-Muslim bias before GPT-3’s limited release, despite being aware of the problem? “That’s the really tricky thing,” Agarwal said. “In some ways, we’re in a Catch-22 here. You learn so much from the release of these models. In a lab setting, there’s so much you don’t know about how the models interact with the world.” In other words, OpenAI tried to strike a balance between cautiousness about releasing a flawed technology to outsiders and eagerness to learn from outsiders about GPT-3’s flaws (and strengths) that they might not be noticing in house. OpenAI does have an academic access program, where scholars who want to probe GPT-3 for bias can request access to it. But the AI goes out to them even as it’s released to some commercial actors, not before. Going forward, “That’s a good thing for us to think about,” Agarwal said. “You’re right that, so far, our strategy has been to have it happen in parallel. And maybe that should change for future models.”

Nearly 100 of the UK’s future research and innovation leaders will benefit from a £113 million cash boost to help commercialise their innovations. Ninety-seven of the UK’s most promising science and research leaders will receive £113 million of funding, Science Minister Amanda Solloway has announced today. Four-legged robots assisting British farmers and new therapy to treat Crohn’s disease are among nearly 100 cutting edge projects benefitting from the government cash injection. Projects supported include robotics supporting British farmers, new therapies to tackle chronic illnesses and unlocking the secrets of naturally occurring batteries. This follows the publication of the recent Innovation Strategy to turn world-leading research into new products and services. This investment will help bring their innovative ideas from lab to market and provide bold solutions to tackle major global issues ranging from climate change to chronic disease. Innovators for the future Among the UK’s future scientific leaders announced today is Dr Dimitrios Kanoulas at University College London (UCL). He will lead the RoboHike project, giving autonomous four-legged robots the ability to navigate through difficult terrain, including construction and agriculture, as well as at the scene of natural disasters. This will enable fast, robust, and reliable navigation in situations where timely delivery of services and emergency aid is essential. Another project, led by Dr Yujiang Wang at Newcastle University will use long-term brain recordings, combined with wearable environmental sensors, to capture and analyse fluctuations in epileptic seizures. Its aim is to gain a better understanding of how seizure activity and severity varies case by case. The project will enable Wang’s team to forecast the severity of upcoming seizures for individual patients, as well as developing future treatments that may reduce their severity. The investment is delivered through UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) flagship Future Leaders Fellowships scheme, which aims to establish the careers of the next generation of world-class British scientists. It will enable researchers at universities and businesses to progress their studies quickly by funding essential equipment and paying for researcher wages. Pursuing new research and innovation ideas Science Minister Amanda Solloway said:, said: I. The government has committed over £900 million to its Future Leader Fellowship initiative over three years. The projects will be an important part of the government’s ambition to cement the UK’s status as a global leader in science, research and innovation, outlined in July’s Innovation Strategy. Today’s funding forms part of the government’s commitment to increase public spending in research and development by £22 billion by 2024 to 2025. This aims to put the UK on track to reach 2.4% of GDP being spent on research and development across the UK economy by 2027. Further projects announced today Other projects announced today include the following: Dr Jeffrey Howard, University College London Dr Howard will investigate the ethics of content moderation by social media platforms and the limits of free speech online. His multidisciplinary team will use this investigative research to produce a major policy report, an educational podcast, and a curriculum promoting good online citizenship. This will help to generate the guidance that the general public, companies, and policymakers need to combat harmful speech on social media Dr Emily Draper, The University of Glasgow Dr Draper will lead a project to develop organic materials to replace environmentally damaging and expensive metals in everyday smart devices such as tablets and smartphones. Today, new environmentally friendly materials are often discovered by chance and then a use is found for them. Dr Draper’s research aims to produce a predictive model that will allow organic materials to be developed to suit an intended purpose Dr Obinna Ubah, Elasmogen Ltd Dr Ubah will lead a project to deliver a new type of therapy that overcomes the limitations of traditional antibody therapies currently used to treat autoimmune diseases, like arthritis and Crohn’s disease. Unlike antibody therapies, the new drugs developed by Dr Ubah will be capable of being used to treat more than one kind of disease, will not require an injection, and will not themselves trigger an adverse immune response. This means they will be able to be used for a much longer period than antibody therapies to treat serious autoimmune diseases Dr James Byrne, The University of Bristol Dr Byrne aims to understand how iron-containing minerals found in the ground can act like natural batteries – known as biogeobatteries. Dr Byrne’s project will investigate how bacteria use these batteries to generate and store energy. It is hoped this work will help us to address the challenges of today’s energy storage demands and build a more sustainable future Dr Viktoria Spaiser, The University of Leeds Dr Spaiser will investigate how new social norms can trigger and accelerate social change (change in policies, institutions, behaviours) in response to the climate crisis. As part of this research, she will investigate the effectiveness of new norms advanced by recent global climate protests, such as Fridays For Futures and how political psychology mechanisms can be harnessed for an empowering and adequate climate action mobilisation. Dr Joshua Dean, The University of Liverpool Dr Dean is leading a project that will use urban waterways, such as canals and rivers, to work out how to measure and map the origins of and reduce methane emissions. Methane is a greenhouse gas 86 times more potent than CO2, and more than half of methane emissions come from human activity. Part of the research will involve mapping how urban waterways deliver methane into the atmosphere, for example through leaking gas pipes Dr Rebecca Phythian, Edge Hill University Dr Phythian seeks to assess how information can be effectively exchanged between law enforcement agencies globally by identifying the crucial underlying factors, specifically in relation to serious organised crime, human trafficking and modern slavery investigations. Dr Uche Okpara, The University of Greenwich Dr Okpara will build an interdisciplinary team to work on peace and prosperity in the Lake Chad region in Africa, which is vulnerable to the related risks of conflict and climate change. He will establish local Citizens Labs and a Conflict and Environment Observatory to deepen public understanding of ways to achieve climate-friendly peace and prosperity in the region. Further information The Future Leaders Fellowships scheme, run by UKRI, helps universities and businesses in the UK recruit, develop and retain the world’s best researchers and innovators, regardless of their background. Each fellowship will last four to seven years. Top image: Credit: Getty

Shell removes “Royal Dutch” from the name and moves to Great Britain. The oil giant wants to keep its investors on board as well as defuse the conflict with activist shareholder Third Point. The group announced on Monday that a simple share structure would make it easier for Shell to buy back its shares. Shareholders will vote on this on December 10th. But the name of the group was also changed: “Royal Dutch” is no longer applicable, and in the future multi-oil will work only under the name “Shell”. Shell also wants to move its tax headquarters from the Netherlands to the UK. The Dutch government spoke of an “unpleasant surprise” and the government in London welcomed the plans. Shell shares rose on the London Stock Exchange that morning. Shell, like other major oil companies, is under increasing pressure from governments and investors to decarbonize its activities. The company has already abandoned its fossil fuel business while increasing its share of renewable energies. Shell has said it wants to become climate neutral by 2050, but is under pressure to do more, faster. Investor Third Point also wants to break up the group, but management has already rejected such demands.

Zhejiang Gongshang University (ZJGSU or ZJSU) Zhejiang Gongshang University (ZJSU), founded in 1911, is the earliest business school in modern China, which is located in a picturesque city--Hangzhou, the capital city of Zhejiang Province. It ranks in China’s top 7 and Zhejiang’s top University for Finance and Economics. ZJSU is a comprehensive university covering nine academic areas including economics, management, law, literature, history, philosophy, engineering, science and arts. ZJSU offers more than 150 full-time Chinese-taught degree programs including undergraduate and postgraduate programs. It also offers different kinds of Chinese language programs, Chinese culture and business programs for language students, Bachelor Program of Chinese Language and Literature (Business Chinese) and English-taught degree programs especially designed for international students. The university has a full-time student population of 27600, with faculty and staff team of 2310. There are three campuses: Xiasha campus, downtown campus and Tonglu campus of Hangzhou College of Commerce. Over 1700 international students coming from more than one hundred countries are studying on the campuses . ZJSU is one of the institutions to accept students who are recipients of Chinese Government Scholarship, Confucius Institute Scholarship and Zhejiang Provincial Government Scholarship. The university also provides excellent international students with generous university-level and school-level scholarships. About Hangzhou People’s Well-being Improvement”, and “the Best Image Friendly City”. The comprehensive pilot zone of cross border E-commerce was established in 2015 in Hangzhou. Alibaba Group, the world's biggest online B2B business, and Geely which acquired Volvo, are both headquartered in Hangzhou. Why Zhejiang Gongshang University ● In China's Top 7 universities and Zhejiang's Top International Student House, Xiasha campus

As I See It SNP’s double-take on whisky is a taxing issueWhisky bosses must be scratching their heads in disbelief after SNP MP Brendan O’Hara damned the Chancellor over reports that he will raise excise duties in his forthcoming budget. Mr O’Hara said Philip Hammond, supported by Scottish Tory MPs, would be delivering an “economic body blow” to an industry which is responsible for a fifth of UK food and drink exports. An “unnecessary tax hike would seriously jeopardise the sector’s ability to thrive and grow in an already challenging economic environment”, said Mr O’Hara. How astonishing that the SNP is demanding fair pricing for the whisky industry. This is the same party that spent months fighting the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) in the courts over its minimum unit price (MUP) policy which put £2 on a £12 bottle of Famous Grouse in the face of warnings that it would damage the sector. The industry has long argued that hiking the price of alcohol does not tackle health issues – it is too early to know whether the introduction of MUP in May is having any effect – and that it sends out the wrong message to other countries with whom it is negotiating to reduce their own high levels of duty. Karen Betts, the chief executive of the SWA, was in Downing Street last week making the latest appeal on behalf of the industry ahead of Mr Hammond’s statement on 29 October. Last Thursday marked “Duty Paid Day”, marking the first day that consumers of Scotch Whisky have theoretically paid off excise duty and VAT on Scotch sold in the UK this year. With nearly three quarters (74%) of the cost of an average priced bottle of Scotch being collected in duty and VAT, Scotland’s national drink is already one of the highest taxed consumer goods in the UK – more than any other alcoholic product. While appeals for tax neutrality is part of the annual Budget ritual, the warnings over the impact on the industry take on an additional concern because of the Brexit uncertainty. There are worries that food and drink products imported from the EU will face an additional £9.3bn annual tariff bill if a deal isn’t reached. Mr Hammond has brought forward his budget to avoid clashing with key meetings in the Brexit negotiations and, notwithstanding the SNP’s sleight of hand, he should take note of its concerns and those of an industry that he cannot afford to undermine. The spirits duty freeze in November 2017 generated an extra £163 million in revenue between February and August 2018, according to the SWA. Furthermore, a study by the Centre for Economic and Business Research suggests that a continued duty freeze on spirits could increase revenue by an extra £64m in 2019/20, and by almost £200m by 2021. This extra revenue is being poured back into the sector with more distilleries now operating across Scotland than in the past seventy years.

Nic the centre. Copernicus’ heliocentric theory was not entirely a new idea as several earlier scholars had proposed a heliocentric system, but Copernicus additionally theorised a new order for the planets in terms of their distance from the Sun, that the Earth orbits the Sun once every year, and that the Earth turns entirely on its own axis each day. These ideas were contrary to those of the Catholic Church which considered humanity and the Earth as the proper and actual centre of God's universe. The reaction to Copernicus' major work, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), published in the year he died, was muted, and there was hardly a revolutionary overturning of how everyone saw the world's place in the universe, as is often claimed. Nevertheless, the astronomer's work would slowly lead to further investigations by later scientists and mathematicians who eventually proved that Copernicus' heliocentric system with a spinning Earth, although containing flaws, was essentially correct. Early Life Nicolaus Copernicus, real name Mikołaj Kopernik, was born on 19 February 1473 CE in Toruń, Poland (then part of Prussia). His father was a successful merchant but after his death c. 1483 CE Copernicus was adopted by Lucas Watzelrode, his maternal uncle. Significantly, Watzelrode later became bishop of Warmia, and the young Nicolaus was likewise expected to pursue a career in the church. First, though, he studied astronomy at the University of Kraków and then medicine and astrology at the University of Bologna. His wide-ranging education in the liberal arts also included mathematics, philosophy, and history. His travels continued when he lectured in mathematics in Rome in 1500 CE, after which he went to the University of Padua to continue his medical studies. Finally, in 1503 CE, he received a doctorate in canon law from the University of Ferrara. This broad education would serve him well for his future investigations, but it is perhaps the astrological observations he made while in Bologna which really set his mind towards solving the problems of the heavenly bodies and their movements. Copernicus returned to Poland in 1506 CE where he acted as his uncle's physician. His uncle also set him up as a church canon (although he never became a priest), a position which required him to collect the rents, manage the assets and oversee the finances of the bishopric of Frombork (aka Frauenburg). Despite these worldly duties, Copernicus never forgot astronomy, and he continued to pursue this field of study in his free time. Observing the Skies In his studies of the heavens, Copernicus had to wrestle with several problems that divided opinions amongst astronomers. There was the persistent idea, first proposed by Aristotle (384-322 BCE), that the planets moved in a uniform way through an undefined medium of invisible spheres, always at fixed distances from a central point, the Earth. This means that the universe must be made up of a series of concentric spheres. Unfortunately, this theory did not match the experience of viewing a variation in the brightness of planets in the night sky. How, then, could planets always be the same distance from the Earth? There was another age-old and related problem in the field, this time a consequence of the theories of Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100 - c. 170 CE). Ptolemy proposed that planets moved within a small circular orbit of their own (epicycle) while still following a larger orbit (deferent) around a fixed central point, the Earth (equant) or, for Ptolemy, a point slightly away from it. The problem with this theory is that it went against the traditional and seemingly untouchable idea that planets moved uniformly and at a constant distance from the Earth in a circular orbit. If one put together Aristotle's scheme of concentric spheres and Ptolemy's scheme of orbits within orbits, then the spheres which contained the planets would wobble and at some point collide - not a possibility for an ordered universe. In the 13th century CE, Persian astronomers attempted to solve this conundrum by combining two epicycles which uniformly revolve around each other. This would create an oscillating point and explain why planets changed distance from the Earth. Copernicus knew of and studied all of these theories, but their complexity seemed contrived to explain an original model that was perhaps itself flawed. Change the central equant point and perhaps the physical behaviour of the planets would become clearer, and the theory that explained it a whole lot simpler. The Heliocentric Solution Copernicus worked for three decades on his theories of just how the Earth and those heavenly bodies visible in the night sky were related to each other. The telescope had not yet been invented, but by observing lunar eclipses and the movement of planets and constellations, he eventually came up with an explanation for the things he saw, perhaps by around 1514 CE. In addition, Copernicus used many observations from past astronomers, some of which were not wholly accurate. That Copernicus was active and respected in the field of astronomy is evidenced by the invitation in 1514 CE to attend the Fifth Lateran Council. There he was to present his views on the proposed reforms to the calendar, important for Church holy days but now long out of synch with the position of the Sun on any given day. In the event, famous astronomer never attended. The final result of his research was nothing short of mind-blowing for the European academic community and especially the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Copernicus proposed that the central point of the universe was not the Earth with all other bodies revolving around it. Rather, the Earth was a planet, which orbited around the Sun, the real central point of our solar system. So, too, it was not the celestial bodies like Mars, Venus, and the stars that revolved around the Earth but the Earth turning on its own axis and orbiting around the Sun, which explained their movements across the sky in a single night and over the period of a year. Further, Copernicus suggested that the Earth made a single turn on its axis in a day and took one year to orbit around the Sun. In addition, relatively small changes in the angle of the Earth's axis over time explained the precession of the equinoxes, that is, the gradual shifting of the constellations in the night sky over time, a phenomenon known since antiquity. The reason why such visible planets as Mercury and Venus showed only a small motion in the night sky was because they orbited within the Earth's orbit of the Sun. Likewise, the often strange motions of the planets Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn could now be explained as due to their position beyond Earth's orbit where they revolved around the Sun at a slower rate. Copernicus was thus able to show that the then observable planets were in the following order from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. All of these radical ideas were presented in Copernicus' De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), a work of six volumes not actually published until 1543 CE. The delay might have been due to the author's concern for the public's reaction, but it is much more likely that he was still wrestling with details and problems of mathematics. Indeed, Copernicus himself stated that he was a mathematician writing for mathematicians, and few outside the field would have understood its contents. The change in the original title, replacing 'Spheres of the World' for 'Heavenly Spheres', does suggest the author was trying to minimise the focus on the real world and concentrate on theoretical mathematics. The Reaction to De Revolutionibus There were still quite a few problems to deal with, though. Copernicus' theory had done away with the prevailing explanation for the observable phenomenon of gravity, i.e. things fell to the ground because the Earth was at the centre of the universe. Another problem was that Copernicus still did not realise the planetary orbits were not perfect circles. That the orbits were elliptical was later formulated by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630 CE). Even more problematic than these questions of physics, Copernicus' ideas went wholly against the traditional view of humanity's place in the universe as proposed by the Catholic Church. The idea that the Earth was the central point and the Sun and Moon orbited around it (the anthropocentric model) was in keeping with the idea that humanity was also the focus, indeed, the whole point of the universe's existence as created by God. The idea that the Earth was the centre of the known universe went back to antiquity and was difficult to shift (even if some ancient thinkers had proposed a heliocentric system). Fortunately for Copernicus, although it happened without his permission, Andreas Osiander (1498–1552 CE), the Lutheran minister who had supervised the publication of De Revolutionibus, had inserted a preface which stated the work was intended as a theoretical aid to mathematicians and not a presentation of how the universe was in reality. This view was in keeping with the times as astronomy and mathematics were regarded as theoretical subjects. Such work as the De Revolutionibus could not seriously attempt to change the general view of the physical world as that was then considered a task for natural philosophy. The preface and traditional separation of academic subjects at the time may well have saved the work and Copernicus' memory - he had died in Frombork shortly before publication on 24 May 1543 CE - from the full wrath of the Catholic Church. Legacy As it happened, reaction to Copernicus' theory was rather tame all round, and even the small pool of astronomy scholars who were its intended audience measured barely a ripple of reaction. However, it was a slow-burner and as later scientists began to explore the same themes and seek ever more accurate astronomical tables, so Copernicus' work came to the fore a few years after its publication. So much so, the reformist Martin Luther (1483-1546 CE) denounced the De Revolutionibus. By 1616 CE, it was more widely known and condemned as heretical by Church authorities who listed it as a forbidden book. Despite Christianity's attempt to brush Copernicus' theories under the ecclesiastical carpet, his work began a long process of scientifically determining the nature of our solar system and its place in the wider universe. Over the following centuries, great thinkers like Galileo (1564-1642 CE) and Isaac Newton (1642-1727 CE) would add to an ever-growing body of knowledge regarding the movement and properties of planets, moons, and stars. In this sense, Copernicus was one of the first protagonists in the scientific revolution that began in the Renaissance period. In honour of his contribution to this process and modern astronomy, one of the largest craters on the Moon is named after Copernicus.

Flaherty & Collins Properties was chosen as the developer of the Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook city-owned site that has been eyed for redevelopment since 2006. That puts the Indianapolis firm at the helm of two key developments in Cleveland Heights – the $83 million Ascent at the Top of the Hill and the Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook project – with an investment of $50 million, adding 200 to 225 apartment units for about 300 residents. “The hope would be that this project could really get up and going and commence construction in the early part of 2022 and then have it complete by the end of 2023,” Tim Boland, the city’s economic development director, told the Cleveland Jewish News April 23. The city has made six attempts to develop the site since 2006. In that time, the 377-space parking garage was built and the site to be redeveloped was expanded. The site is divided into two sections: 1.07 acres south of Tullamore Road and 3.73 acres north of it. The typical tenants, as described in Flaherty & Collins Properties proposal, will be a “renter by choice” with an average salary of $100,000, the creation of 50 to 100 new residents, more than 500 construction jobs and a total economic impact of $100 million and 700 jobs “when factoring in the direct, indirect and induced impacts.” Deron Kintner, general counsel of Flaherty & Collins Properties, said he felt drawn to the Cedar-Lee neighborhood in a similar way he had been when seeing the Cedar-Fairmount neighborhood. “Personally, I had a similar feeling in both those places, that people would want to live there,” Kintner told the CJN May 6. “While different, they both had a unique kind of character and a charm to them that is hard to replicate, oftentimes isn’t times isn’t replicated and had their own identity.” Kintner cited restaurants at Cedar-Lee and its walkability as well as its potential for growth. “We can attract people here,” he said. “There’s a lot going for it.” The developer is seeking a 99-year land lease at $10 per year with a option to purchase in year 40 and 30-year tax-increment financing bonds issued by the city, “but sold using the project and developer’s credit, guarantees, as needed.” The financing package would require both city council and Cleveland Heights-University Heights school board approval. In addition, the developer projects $1.5 million in new annual property tax. Boland recommended council choose the team led by Flaherty & Collins Properties and City Architecture of Cleveland over one led by City Six Development of Beachwood and M. Panzica Development of Mayfield at its April 19 meeting. The two teams responded to the city’s 2020 request for proposals. “The F&C and City Architecture proposal in our view has a greater economic impact in that they had proposed to develop the entire 4.8-acre site in one phase, investing $50 million, or almost 2 1/2 times what was proposed by the City Six proposal,” Boland told city council. “You’ll recall the City Six proposal was focused just on the Meadowbrook-Lee portion of the site.” Developing only one portion of the site, as proposed by City Six, he said, “really makes it less probable that the entire site would be developed in the future.” Flaherty & Collins Properties, said Boland, “is open to the same types of personal and brokered guarantees as they submitted in the Top of the Hill project.” The final memorandum of understanding will require city council approval. Council member Melody Joy Hart asked Boland to include requirements in the memorandum of understanding for prevailing wage, local hiring and a robust community engagement process. “Absolutely,” he said. Councilman Michael N. Ungar praised city staff and both development teams for their presentations in making the motion to authorize the city to negotiate with the Flaherty & Collins team. Council member Mary Dunbar seconded the motion. Boland said the project is expected to bring in new residents. “That’s always a great thing for an inner ring suburb,” he told the CJN. He said he does not know what the tax benefits, economic benefits in terms of job creation or impacts to schools will be. “Those are the kind of projections that we’re going to be asking the developer to present and provide to us,” he said, adding that the city is early in the project. Similarly, he said he did not know what the final arrangement of ownership would be for the site. “That’s really part of the negotiations,” he said. “I think the city is certainly strongly considering the same approach we took with the Top of the Hill site which is a ground lease.” In that arrangement, the city would retain ownership of the land and the developer or a succeeding entity would own the improvements. “The district is one of the Cleveland area’s most vibrant shopping and dining experiences. City Manager Susanna Niermann O’Neil said in a news release. “This redevelopment opportunity to create an amenity-filled mixed-use development has the potential to add to the unique character of the surrounding Cedar Lee neighborhood. The city anticipates the construction of a dense, vibrant, pedestrian-friendly and unique mixed-use development that leverages the place-making opportunities of the site and the Cedar Lee District.” Kintner said with the opening of the public garage at the Top of the Hill, retail and residential development can now proceed. He said the garage opened in April. The first residential and retail buildings should open in spring 2022 with the balance opening in the summer. There will be 262 apartment units and 11,000 square feet of retail space, with the best represented demographics among residents as young professionals and empty nesters. “It’s not easy signing up retail in this current environment,” Kintner said, referring to the chill that the COVID-19 pandemic has placed on retail business. “We’re very bullish that when things normalize, there will be a lot of interest.”

Business Facebook enlists researchers to study its impact on 2020 election Facebook is working with a group of third-party researchers to study how content and user behavior on the social network’s apps affect the 2020 election. A group of 17 university researchers will look at how Facebook and Instagram influence issues such as political polarization, and whether people vote, said Talia Stroud, a communications professor at the University of Texas who is co-charing the research group. Users must consent to participate, and will be paid, says Chaya Nayak, who leads Facebook’s open research and transparency team. While Facebook is covering the costs to participants, the researchers are not taking money from the company. The researchers won’t need Facebook’s approval before it can publish its findings, the company said in a blog post. “We thought it was incredibly important as a group that no one take money from Facebook,” said Joshua Tucker, a politics professor at New York University, and co-chair of the research group. “It was crucial to our independence.” Facebook’s role in the 2016 election wasn’t widely known publicly until months later, when it was learned that Russian actors used the company’s services to sow division and spread disinformation. Facebook is often criticized for the divisive political content that appears on its platform.

Telangana deploys COVID-19 monitoring system app Hyderabad, April 6 (IANS) The Telangana government has deployed India’s first automated ‘COVID-19 Monitoring System App’ to identify, undertake live surveillance, track, monitor, and provide real-time analytics. The app, devised by Vera Smart Healthcare, is helping officials and even the Chief Ministers Office to keep track of the situation on a real time basis. COVID-19 Monitoring System App, developed in a record time to deal with the pandemic, enables live surveillance, monitoring, tracking, reporting, and major bulletins. The analytics by the app also facilitate assurance to the stakeholders by providing the facts and figures at their fingertips. The system empowers each health-caller to handle over 1500 calls, and simple chatbot interaction every day with a patient, to ensure that the symptomatic or confirmed ‘positive’, quarantined and is under treatment, helping to strengthen the Covid-19 contacts outreach significantly. The callers will also persuade and remind the patient to self-administer the prescribed treatment, to maintain social distancing, as well as give a reminder to stay home and stay safe. This user-friendly app is developed by the US and Hyderabad based, early stage start-up Vera Smart Healthcare, which had earlier helped Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu, to create detailed health profiles for more than 50,000 people across these states. Vera has introduced the first-ever mobile hospital in India to help increase healthcare accessibility in rural areas covering most of the Indian villages. The company focuses on building smart hospitals in India along with its technology partner Fellow. “The system has helped us first, track and monitor the foreign returnees; community spread and already hospitalised for severe acute respiratory infection (SARS) very early to control spread of Covid,” said G. Srinivas Rao, Director of Public Health, Government of Telangana. He commended Vera Smart Healthcare expertise for handling the COVID-19 surveillance complexities, understanding the protocol, and developing the technology platform in a record three days. “Our technology is based on IoT, Smart devices, GPS and Geotag via a super lite centralised App, which is installed in the phones of all associates from the ground level till the Chief Minister’s Office. The system was built by Vera in record time. Every stakeholder got comprehensive training on using the App,” said Dharma Teja Nukarapu, Founder and CEO of Vera Healthcare. “Among the vital features of the app is Geotagging and GPS tracking of the home quarantined person, to ensure that he/she is not breaching the law of quarantine. “With instant trace and trackability, accurate information is pushed to the authorities even if there is a breach. Every detail reported — reaches the Chief Minister’s Office through various updaters like the ASHA worker, doctor, police, concerned bureaucrat,” said Nukarapu. –IANS ms/dpb

How a desert plant's DNA could help save Arizona's farm crops in a changing climate John Cushman knows that succulents have tricks up their sleeves. He believes those tricks could shape the future of farming. Geneticists have long tried to understand the biochemical marvel of the succulent, and there is still much they don’t know. But these botanical curiosities have two important things in common. They’re really good at storing water. And they work at night. Now, Cushman and his team want to build off the lines of genetic code that give desert plants their superpowers. He wants to make soybeans behave a little more like succulents. Cushman, who conducted his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona, is now a professor of molecular biology and director of the biochemistry graduate program at the University of Nevada, Reno. He recently received a $1.55 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to fund his research and hopes his work will one day help thirsty crops to survive the drought conditions being worsened by climate change. Drought and heat stress is an urgent problem for Arizona, where farmers are already seeing the effects of significant water shortages. Cushman’s approach is just one effort at using biotechnology to fix the problem. Some researchers use DNA analysis to assist with selective breeding, honing in on desirable plant traits and creating better crop varieties in just a fraction of the time of traditional breeding methods. Others use newer technologies like CRISPR, commonly described as a pair of “genetic scissors,” to snip out undesirable traits and replace them with better ones without using DNA from another plant and without the controversy associated with GMOs. No matter the methods, many of these plant engineers have a common goal: to maintain or even increase yields with fewer resources. And they want to do it quickly. Studies suggest global crop production will need to more than double by 2050 to meet the needs of a growing population. But before any newly designed drought-resistant crops make it to the market, they have to be approved by regulatory agencies, sold by agriculture companies and adopted by farmers. That journey raises bigger questions about just how far researchers and companies can go to change the plants that end up on our plates. Techniques like Cushman’s are expensive and slow to develop, and not everyone in Arizona is on board with the idea that technology will answer the state’s water woes. But as the situation becomes more direr, Cushman believes his methods will become more widespread. “I think if (people) really understand the science and the necessity to begin leveraging these biotechnological innovations for the survival of the human race, then necessity will always win out,” Cushman said. “People will accept what is useful to them.” Engineering a succulent After Cushman and his team examined some of the useful genes that make succulents do their thing, they needed to prove that they could make other plants do the same. So they set to work engineering the magic of succulents. That magic is as diverse as the plant varieties themselves. “(Desert plants are) all trying to make a living. They do the best they can with as little water as they can,” said Elizabeth Makings, a botanist and research specialist at Arizona State University. “They can produce their sugars at night. And they’ve got these big fat leaves, and squishy texture, and spines or prickles or milky sap. So they have a cool arsenal of adaptations.” For Cushman and his team, the most relevant traits in that arsenal are thick leaves (commonly referred to by the experts as “succulence”) and crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) photosynthesis. CAM is the process by which some desert plants store up carbon dioxide that they collect at night, when it’s cooler out, so they don’t lose water during the day. Cushman and his team replicated succulence by manipulating a gene from a wine grape plant. Grapes aren’t succulents, but their fruits exhibit similar patterns to succulents as they expand and ripen. So Cushman and his team took the molecular instructions that control that expansion and growth and gave the genetic recipe to a model plant called Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering weed that is not a succulent. Sure enough, the Arabidopsis leaves grew 40% thicker and the plants could go two to three times as long without being watered. That’s when Cushman got excited. “It (was) a unique experience, sort of a ‘eureka!’ moment,” Cushman said of the day he and his team entered the lab to find the thicker leaves. “Like, ‘wow, this is really going to work.’” Now, Cushman and his team are moving on to testing their bioengineered succulence, as well as similar synthetic versions of CAM photosynthesis, in soybeans, which are notoriously water-intensive. If they succeed, the technology could be applied to other thirsty plants; the four major U.S. cash crops, wheat, soybeans, corn and cotton, are all highly water-use inefficient. If Cushman’s soybeans make it big, it would mean more than just thicker leaves. Besides drought tolerance and water efficiency, the new version of Arabidopsis also demonstrated better tolerance to salinity. That’s good news for crops because, with less rainwater available, soils tend to accumulate more salt that dehydrates plant cells, which can stunt growth and decrease yields. And engineering CAM involves changing an entire set of genes, explained Makings. It’s not just a minor tweak — it’s switching a plant from one type of photosynthesis to another. That could mean a fundamental change in the biological needs of the crops people rely on most for food and clothing production. Cushman already has patents on some of the technology necessary to engineer succulence and CAM, and Makings thinks the idea is well within reach. “We’re so adept at playing with the genome now,” she said. “Anything’s possible with plants.” From the lab to the field Forty-five minutes south of Phoenix, the sun beats down on caked earth planted with two sample plots of guayule, a hardy desert plant that smells faintly like eucalyptus. One of the plots looks lusher than the other, with taller and bushier plants. That’s because the first plot gets more water. Guayule produces natural alternatives to rubber, latex and other specialty chemicals, and may one day be a staple for desert farmers. In this field in Maricopa, Hussein Abdel-Haleem, a research geneticist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is using data from a tricked-out tractor, rigged with a series of sensors that measure traits like plant height and color, to see which of the guayule plants copes best with the lack of water. “In this scenario, we’ll be looking for the more stable genotype, giving the same yield from high water to less water,” Abdel-Haleem said of the guayule fields. Abdel-Haleem also works with crops like cotton, soybeans and Camelina, a plant used to produce biofuels, in hopes of identifying and selectively breeding for drought-resistant traits. But his work has a key difference from Cushman’s: none of his projects are transgenic. That is, they don’t involve moving genes from one plant species into another. “I am making the variation from the (individual) plants themselves,” said Abdel-Haleem, who explained he and Cushman are aiming for “the same target but with different routes.” Rebecca Mosher believes both those routes and others will be necessary to fight climate change. Mosher, an associate professor at the University of Arizona School of Plant Sciences, is the lead investigator on a project bringing together a team of biologists, engineers, computer scientists and social scientists to better interpret and understand how plants respond to their environments. Mosher’s team has also received a grant from the NSF. She said the $25 million investment represents what she perceives as a growing interest by scientific organizations in funding biotechnology to improve yields under progressively more challenging global conditions. While her project will involve more data-driven and computational techniques, she said many scientific disciplines will have to work together. “Climate change is such a big problem, we need everything,” Mosher said. “We have a lot of mouths to feed in the coming decades.” But whether consumers will accept the solutions that feed them is another story. Research, regulators and resistance In Yuma, three hours southwest of Abdel-Haleem’s guayule plots, more new crop experiments are underway. Rows of cotton wave in the bright sun as sprinklers arc rainbows across the dusty fields. A grove of date palms rises to meet the horizon. Lines of cantaloupes, cucumbers, alfalfa, parsley, lettuce and strawberries are marked by tiny colored flags that indicate different trial groups. Steve West, the COO, vice president and research director of Research Designed for Agriculture (RD4AG), uses these fields to test new products for big agriculture companies. Some of the trials compare the effects of different irrigation methods. Others test the yields produced by different types of fertilizers. Many of them provide the data and safety information that will one day be used by regulatory agencies like the USDA and Food and Drug Administration to clear new varieties of plants for the market. West, who has worked with major players including Monsanto (acquired by Bayer in 2018), Dole and DuPont, said that one new transgenic seed can ultimately end up costing a company hundreds of millions of dollars. After RD4AG harvests a sample of a new transgenic plant, they load 2,000-pound pallets of samples, packed in dry ice, onto trucks that haul them overnight to be analyzed by a lab, where company researchers can determine whether the specific protein they want has been expressed in the genome. Then there are dozens of tests to determine a transgenic crop’s impact on native plants, pollinators and bird life — not to mention the quality control for human consumption. The amount of labor and lab work necessary to ensure the trials are accurate adds up to “real money,” West said. “With transgenics, it’s only the big companies that can afford it,” West said. “You have to prove that corn is still corn ... we have to show that it has the same nutrient composition, the same molecular composition up and down the plant.” The price tag, and the stringent regulations that go with it, affect who can successfully develop what kinds of plants. In 2020, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) updated its regulations, partly in hopes of inspiring smaller players to innovate technological answers to the climate crisis. But transgenic crops like Cushman’s succulent soybeans were not included in those updates. As a result, Cushman thinks his best shot of bringing a succulent-soybean product to market would be to license his work to a big agriculture business. However, West says that some big agriculture companies have shied away from investing heavily in crops that might be seen as “frankenfoods,” instead opting for less heavily regulated CRISPR and fertilizer technologies that stay clear of public controversy over GMOs. “The vegetable companies are leery of anything that’s going to put them on the front page,” said West, adding that he has seen a shift away from big companies interested in pursuing transgenic technologies. A spokesperson for Bayer said that both transgenic and CRISPR crops are “critical to Bayer and to our future as a planet” but did not provide specifics on their strategy regarding those technologies. Stefanie Boe, the Engagement Lead for Bayer Crop Science in Marana, Arizona, said that the agriculture technology industry “didn't do a really great job of telling the story of GMO and transgenic (crops) in the early days. It was just, ‘hey, this exists and you should accept it. And that was not a great approach.” The Marana Bayer facility, which was built during the Monsanto acquisition, is exclusively dedicated to researching corn seed, which Boe said Bayer develops using both transgenic and CRISPR approaches. While she acknowledged past controversy over Monsanto crops, Boe hopes increased transparency and the return of in-person tours will give people a chance to voice their concerns. “Once you see the corn,” Boe said, “it changes your mind.” Robin Motzer isn’t so sure. A leader of the Sustainable Tucson Habitat Restoration Committee and member of the “Toxin-Free Pima County” Facebook group, she has protested Monsanto in the past and remains highly skeptical of big technology companies that control access to genetically modified seed. “We need to go back to the way the land used to be managed,” Motzer said. Many others share similar beliefs: the Toxin-Free Pima County and Baja Arizona groups, which include posts on everything from stopping the use of pesticides to calls for regenerative agriculture, have a combined total of over 25,000 likes on Facebook. For farmers, though, changing land use or bioengineering new crops might both be solutions that are too little or too late. Because the water sources are running out. Farmers face an uncertain future Every day, Nancy Caywood checks the U.S. Geological Survey website. Sometimes she checks it several times a day. She’s keeping a close eye on the water. “You drive out to our farm and you look at these canals as they dry up and you just want to cry,” Caywood said. Her family has farmed land in Casa Grande for 90 years, planting cotton, alfalfa and sometimes corn, wheat and barley. But this year, it was too dry to plant cotton. Her son Travis, who now does the farm work, was only able to gather three cuttings of alfalfa from a field that normally yields eight. “It's just heart-wrenching to know that we’re trying to save this farm, and we don't know how much longer we can hang in there,” Caywood said. They have already fallowed over 30% of their land. Caywood used to be a research farmer, and she is open to anything that could save water and bring their yields back. From her time in the research world, she knows that it takes a long time for seeds to get to market. But she also described instances when seeds were commercialized “in half the time because of desperation,” especially when pests such as aphids threaten to wreak havoc on yields. She described the lack of water as a similar pressure. “(Drought resistant seed) is something that we desperately need,” Caywood said. Jack Dixon, another farmer based in Pinal County, agrees that biotech crops could help the drought issue, but not on their own. “Genetic stuff like the (drought resistant) soybeans is good in certain areas, but it’s not going to solve our problem. We need to save a lot more water than that,” he said. Dixon is wary of thinking of biotechnology as a silver bullet. “We have to stop raising alfalfa,” he said, “and they’re going to have to change irrigation systems.” All of these issues will continue to persist as researchers, companies and farmers continue to pursue yields in the face of a dwindling water supply. “Arizona has the climate of tomorrow, today,” Mosher said. “We need to be prepared for hotter, drier climates.” Succulents have been prepared for those climates for a long time. That’s where they thrive. But it may be a while before researchers like Cushman bring their magic to other types of plants at scale. In the meantime, though, plant researchers will continue to add to the toolbox of options for addressing the drought. “I’m fond of the saying that there are no solutions, there are only trade-offs,” Mosher said. “By studying the plants better, by understanding them and bringing every technology we have to bear on it, that will give us better trade-offs.”.

China’s State-Owned Pharma Co Taps Into Direct Sales China's State-owned Shandong Freda Pharmaceutical Group Co Ltd is extending its sales model to include direct sales. This makes the company the fifth State-owned company in China to involve direct sales and the first in Shandong province. The company got the direct sales license from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce in May, making it the 52nd company that can do direct sales business in China. Direct sales is where goods are sold directly to consumers outside of a fixed retail environment. Ma Yunpeng, general manager of Shandong Freda, said the company's new sales model which is named as Kangzhuang Dadao (Healthy Makeup Avenue) consists of experience-oriented shops, O2O and direct sales. Kangzhuang Dadao has more ways to reach consumers, Ma talked about the company's advantages in the field of direct sales. Shandong Freda is owned by Lushang Group whose businesses cover sectors like, retail, real estate, hotels and tourism, media, education and finance. This backs up our direct sales with complete industrial chains, said Ma. Huang Xiaodong who is responsible for the company's direct sales business said although the direct sales business has seen a fast development in China in recent years, it is left behind by countries like Japan and South Korea. As a State-owned company, we will put efforts on developing the direct sales in a sound way, said Huang. Since China's Regulations on Direct Sales issued in 2005, the number of direct sales companies has increased to over 60 by May. These companies create jobs for more than 30 million people and their sales reached 160 billion yuan in total last year.

Read carefully before planning a family trip across the border — the fine print in Canada’s return policy states unvaccinated children cannot attend school or daycare for two weeks after an international visit. While the U.S. border has opened to Canadians eager to head south, be it to snag Black Friday deals or otherwise, many rules remain intact for travellers who are not yet eligible to get immunized against COVID-19. “It’s really important for parents and guardians to know, if they’re going to be travelling outside of Manitoba or Canada, what all the rules are when they come back,” said Radean Carter, senior information officer with the Winnipeg School Division. “(The clause about school attendance) could have an impact on your decision to travel.” The division has circulated an online flyer that lists everything families need to know about travelling during a pandemic school year. Canada’s directives on travel indicate fully vaccinated residents do not need to quarantine upon returning from another country and can attend school without issue, if they have no symptoms of COVID-19. Young students face different protocols. Anyone younger than 12 who has travelled with fully immunized parents, guardians or tutors is exempt from doing a full quarantine upon return — but that doesn’t mean they can show up to a child-care facility or classroom right away. Those students are not allowed to attend crowded settings of any kind, take public buses, or visit places where they may have contact with vulnerable populations for a period of 14 days after re-entering the country. They can, however, accompany parents to grocery stores and gather with small groups of fully vaccinated people. At the same time, families are expected to keep a list of both close contacts and locations visited. In contrast, young learners who have travelled with unvaccinated adults must strictly self-isolate at home for two weeks, post-trip. Cathy Cordy, who owns Under the Tuscan Sun Travel, said she spends much of her workday answering clients’ questions about international travel protocols because the rules are ever-changing and vary depending on the destination. “I believe the travel adviser is never more valuable than it is today. I spend the majority of the time keeping up on what (public health) changes there are,” said Cordy, a Winnipeg travel agent. Current national protocols require unvaccinated youth to complete tests pre-entry, on arrival and on the eighth day back in Canada. Fully vaccinated international travellers are only required to show a pre-entry molecular test and if selected, an arrival test. A rollout of vaccines for children born after 2009 — and a related loosening of protocols — cannot come soon enough for Cordy, who said she is more than ready to “climb out of the hole I’ve been in with my business” after nearly two years of public health officials discouraging family beach vacations. Coronavirustravelvaccines